AfricaIs aCountry

“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

Afrobeats after Fela

Wizkid’s dispute with Seun Kuti and the release of his latest EP with Asake highlight the widening gap between Afrobeats’ commercial triumph and Fela Kuti’s political inheritance

Progress is exhausting

Pedro Pinho’s latest film follows a Portuguese engineer in Guinea-Bissau, exposing how empire survives through bureaucracy, intimacy, and the language of “development.”

The rubble of empire

Built by Italian Fascists in 1928, Mogadishu Cathedral was meant to symbolize “peaceful conquest.” Today its ruins force Somalis to confront the uneasy afterlife of colonial power and religious authority.

Atayese

Honored in Yorubaland as “one who repairs the world,” Jesse Jackson’s life bridged civil rights, pan-Africanism, empire, and contradiction—leaving behind a legacy as expansive as it was imperfect.

Bread or Messi?

Angola’s golden jubilee culminated in a multimillion-dollar match against Argentina. The price tag—and the secrecy around it—divided a nation already grappling with inequality.

Visiting Ngara

A redevelopment project in Nairobi’s Ngara district promises revival—but raises deeper questions about capital, memory, and who has the right to shape the city.

Gen Z’s electoral dilemma

Long dismissed as apathetic, Kenya’s youth forced a rupture in 2024. As the 2027 election approaches, their challenge is turning digital rebellion and street protest into political power.