Africa Is a Country

“Keep Africa Alive,” Continued

Africa Is a Country Podcast
African Five-a-Side Podcast

“Keep Africa Alive,” Continued

By
Sonja Sugira

The campaign is accompanied by print ads featuring celebrities in coffins to represent their digital deaths. Can this stop, please?

The Keep a Child Alive campaign features celebrities photographed in a coffin.

Today is World AIDS Day, which means you can expect the gatekeepers of Team: Save Africa to be in exceptionally fine form. In years past, Bono and (RED) have reigned supreme but this year brings a new contender in the form of Alicia Keys and her charity, Keep A Child Alive (KCA). Founded in 2003 by Leigh Blake, KCA has mostly wallowed in obscurity, only able to sit and watch as (RED) cornered the market. Not that KCA hasn’t tried. Who can forget their first attempt at grabbing the spotlight, 2006’s “I Am African” campaign?

The KCA folk has threatened to not tweet for a day. “The world’s top celebrity tweeters are sacrificing their digital lives to give real life to millions of people affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.” The campaign is accompanied by print ads featuring the celebrities in coffins to represent their digital deaths. They include Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian and Usher and Elijah Wood.

I would file this latest stunt under the same banner but I can barely conjure up an eye roll, much less proper indignation. Better luck next year. Watch.

Further Reading

In search of Saadia

Who was Saadia, and why has she been forgotten? A search for one woman’s story opens up bigger questions about race, migration, belonging, and the gaps history leaves behind.

Binti, revisited

More than two decades after its release, Lady Jaydee’s debut album still resonates—offering a window into Tanzanian pop, gender politics, and the sound of a generation coming into its own.

The bones beneath our feet

A powerful new documentary follows Evelyn Wanjugu Kimathi’s personal and political journey to recover her father’s remains—and to reckon with Kenya’s unfinished struggle for land, justice, and historical memory.

What comes after liberation?

In this wide-ranging conversation, the freedom fighter and former Constitutional Court justice Albie Sachs reflects on law, liberation, and the unfinished work of building a just South Africa.

The cost of care

In Africa’s migration economy, women’s labor fuels households abroad while their own needs are sidelined at home. What does freedom look like when care itself becomes a form of exile?

The memory keepers

A new documentary follows two women’s mission to decolonize Nairobi’s libraries, revealing how good intentions collide with bureaucracy, donor politics, and the ghosts of colonialism.

Making films against amnesia

The director of the Oscar-nominated film ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat’ reflects on imperial violence, corporate warfare, and how cinema can disrupt the official record—and help us remember differently.