Verah Okeyo

Verah Okeyo is an award-winning global health reporter and editor from East Africa’s Daily Nation newspaper, published by the media conglomerate Nation Media Group. She is also lecturer and media trainer who has worked with organisations such as Thomson Reuters Foundation to train journalists across the continent on various elements of health reporting.

While she reports generally on health, her journalism leans more towards the following: reproductive, maternal and child health, health systems in the developing world, mental health, infectious diseases, neglected tropical diseases, agriculture and climate change. Due to her love for fighting for the down trodden in the society, Verah founded the Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) desk at Nation which seeks to realign the company’s journalism to be more inclusive and have the voices that represent the country’s outlook.  In this capacity, Verah has attracted more than 60,000$ of grants during the Covid-19 period for various journalism projects from organisations such as Microsoft and Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting

Verah holds a BA in Media Communication and Technology (Electronic option) with IT with a minor in Creative and Performing arts from Kenya’s Maseno University and an MSC in global media and communications from the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom. Her dissertation—the impact of foundation-funded journalism and the impact of science reporting in Kenya— is an indication of her research interest on the political economy of science journalism and communication in East Africa. She is also about to complete her post-graduate diploma in education.

Verah likes music, textiles, children and animals and spends her spare time reading about them, in a school teaching, in her spare bedroom sewing or playing in bands. She tweets as @VerahOkeyo