Season 6 of the Africa NCDs Champions Podcast, hosted by public health advocate and researcher Ogweno Stephen, has been released, bringing together conversations with health professionals, advocates, young leaders and people with lived experience to explore the realities of living with and responding to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).

The new season features eight conversations covering kidney disease, tobacco control, obesity, weight stigma, healthy living, food relationships and the role of young people in preventing NCDs. Through these discussions, the podcast creates space for experiences and perspectives that are often missing from mainstream conversations about health, while exploring practical lessons for individuals, communities and health systems.

Published under Practical Skills by Ogweno Stephen, the season continues the Africa NCDs Champions Podcast’s focus on bringing the people behind public health issues into the conversation. Rather than treating NCDs only as clinical or policy concerns, the episodes explore how these conditions affect everyday lives, families and communities.

Eight conversations addressing the realities of NCDs

Season 6 features the following episodes:

1. The Truth About Kidney Disease | Nurse Rose Gitau x Stephen Ogweno

Nurse Rose Gitau joins Ogweno Stephen to discuss kidney disease, bringing a healthcare professional’s perspective to a condition that requires greater public understanding. The conversation focuses on the importance of recognising kidney disease as a significant health concern and strengthening awareness around its prevention and management.

2. A Family Legacy Against Tobacco Use | Lloyd Sheppard x Ogweno Stephen

Lloyd Sheppard shares a conversation about family experiences and the fight against tobacco use. The episode explores how tobacco affects individuals and families, while highlighting the importance of advocacy, awareness and efforts to protect future generations from tobacco-related harm.

3. The Weight Craze in the Community | Veronicah Mumbi x Ogweno Stephen

With Veronicah Mumbi, this episode examines how weight, body image and social expectations shape conversations about health in communities. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the influence of weight-related perceptions and the importance of approaching obesity and weight management with understanding rather than stigma.

4. Healthy Living? We Can Do It | Leah Wanjiru x Ogweno Stephen

Leah Wanjiru joins Stephen to explore healthy living and the practical choices that can support better health. The discussion considers how healthier lifestyles can become more achievable when individuals and communities have the knowledge, support and environments needed to make sustainable changes.

5. From Diagnosis to Health Advocate | Onyango George x Ogweno Stephen

Onyango George shares a journey from receiving a diagnosis to becoming a health advocate. The conversation explores how personal experiences with illness can shape a person’s understanding of health and motivate them to support others, challenge misconceptions and contribute to wider advocacy efforts.

6. Healing Your Relationship With Food | Cynthia Wamboi x Ogweno Stephen

Cynthia Wamboi joins the podcast to discuss the relationship people have with food. The episode creates space to consider the emotional, social and behavioural dimensions of eating, moving beyond simplistic messages about diet and weight to explore a more balanced and understanding approach to food and wellbeing.

7. We the Youth Can End Tobacco Use | Hellen Ngweno x Ogweno Stephen

Featuring Hellen Ngweno, this episode highlights the role of young people in tobacco control. It explores youth participation in advocacy and the importance of empowering young people to contribute to efforts that prevent tobacco use and protect their peers and communities.

8. Life Beyond Obesity and Weight Stigma | Mary Mwihaki x Ogweno Stephen

Mary Mwihaki joins Stephen for a conversation about life beyond obesity and weight stigma. The episode challenges the tendency to define people by their body size and highlights the importance of dignity, empathy and person-centred approaches to obesity. It also connects with the wider need to recognise obesity as a health condition while ensuring that people living with it are treated with respect.

Making lived experience part of the NCD conversation

A defining feature of this season is the range of voices represented. Health professionals bring clinical and practical knowledge, while advocates and people with lived experience offer insights into the personal and social dimensions of health conditions.

This combination matters because NCD prevention and care cannot be addressed through medical interventions alone. People experience health within families, workplaces and communities, where social attitudes, access to information, economic circumstances and the availability of supportive services all influence their choices and outcomes.

For Ogweno Stephen, bringing these perspectives together reflects a broader commitment to making public health conversations more inclusive and grounded in real experiences. His work in NCD advocacy, obesity policy and health systems strengthening has consistently emphasised the importance of involving communities and people directly affected by health conditions in shaping the responses intended to serve them.

The conversations also address issues that are closely connected. Tobacco use, unhealthy food environments, obesity, kidney disease and other NCDs require responses that combine prevention, early detection, appropriate treatment, public education and supportive policies. They also require sustained collaboration between health professionals, policymakers, civil society organisations, young people and communities.

Continuing the conversation on healthier futures

The release of Season 6 adds to ongoing efforts to make NCD information and advocacy accessible through conversations that connect technical knowledge with everyday experiences.

From challenging tobacco use to addressing weight stigma, from understanding kidney disease to building healthier relationships with food, the episodes invite audiences to look beyond individual diagnoses and consider the wider factors that shape health.

By hosting these conversations, Ogweno Stephen continues to use public communication as part of his broader work in public health advocacy. The season reinforces an important message: meaningful progress against NCDs requires listening to the people affected, sharing practical knowledge and creating environments in which healthier lives are possible.

Season 6 of the Africa NCDs Champions Podcast is available through Practical Skills by Ogweno Stephen. https://open.spotify.com/show/1kszQAuMkZbEbVKkEY3pie