By Beatrice Chabaya
Roland Byagaba, a 36-year-old Ugandan entrepreneur, journalist and IT specialist, is on a mission to empower Africans to tell their own stories. Born into a family of five, Roland’s says his passion for storytelling led him to create Muwado, a platform where Africans get to tell their stories.
“Muwado started out as a personal blog where I wanted to tell Ugandan stories and my different experiences around the world. I had just come from a project, a magazine called Elite which wasn’t doing so well so I thought of putting my thoughts on the internet which has lower operational costs and bring other people on board to help tell African stories,” he explained in an interview during his recent visit to Lusaka.
Being an IT specialist who graduated from the Uganda Martyr University, Nkosi, Roland launched Muwado in 2013 as a blog to bridge the gap between stories told by non-Africans and the reality on the ground.
Roland observed that most stories which were told by non-Africans were not as accurate. “It’s different being told a story about Africa from a non-African, telling you about your place when you can tell those stories yourself,” he said.
As an arts journalist and a traveller, Roland says: “Through my travels, I am able to document African stories and publish them so that Africans can see the importance of travel and the similarities we all have as Africans. Initially, sustaining Muwado was difficult due to financial constraints. However, a grant from UNDP helped kickstart the platform,” Roland recalls. “We maintained the platform, but there was no financial gain to pay our contributors” That’s when he pivoted Muwado into an Africa-centric social network, monetizing the platform’s content from diverse African storytellers.
In 2019, Roland introduced content monetization, which enabled writers to earn through reader gifts, monthly subscriptions, and advertisements. “We would leverage existing technology, customize it for the African market, and provide tools on the platform that enabled existing and new storytellers to earn from their content,” he says.
He explained that all stories were welcome on Muwado, of course those adhering to the safety standards on the internet.
Journalists and anyone can write news updates, fictional and personal experience stories that could attract readers from all over the world, he says.
Roland’s travels across the SADC region, including the 2018 Cape to Cairo expedition, broadened his perspective on African stories.
As an arts journalist and traveler, one of the reasons he is on this trip through the SADC countries is to build capacity in African writers and quantity of story tellers on the platform.
“Currently, most of the content on Muwado is Ugandan but through these travels, I intend to build networks so that the platform can house stories from all over Africa, showcasing the richness and diversity of African experiences,” he says.
Covering over 10 countries, and counting, Muwado continues to empower African storytellers, providing a sustainable platform for content creation and monetization, in any language.
Just like other Africans, from University, Roland has had an interest in marketing, and tried different things such as agriculture, acting and IT itself.
Roland’s vision has created a community where Africans can share and celebrate their stories, and live off story-telling, through monetisation.
Roland, however, highlighted one of the challenges being faced economically, which is people not valuing art and creativity.
“We noticed that most people do not value art and creativity and that has made it hard to earn money on the platform. However, we encourage all our writers to write enthusiastically so that their stories can gain attraction from readers who later pay whatever amount they have to support further publishing of the stories,” said Roland.
Through his travels and other people’s stories, Roland hopes to build more networks as he tries to finish his Cape to Cairo expedition.