Naipanoi Lepapa

GRANTEE

Naipanoi Lepapa is an award-winning freelance investigative journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is deeply passionate about underreported issues in human rights, gender, health technology, the environment, and climate change. She specializes in open-source intelligence and cross-border investigations.

For her role in empowering women in the East Africa region, Lepapa was awarded the Gender Mainstreaming Award in 2022. After her investigative series on the surrogacy industry in Kenya, she was named Kenya's Journalist of the Year by the Media Council of Kenya at the 2022 Annual Journalism Excellence Awards (AJEA).

She was a finalist for the Inge Feltrinelli Prize (2022) and the 2021 Fetisov Journalism Award in the Outstanding Investigative Reporting category.

Naipanoi Lepapa headshot