Reflections from a Year of Practice | Jan 2026
Some years rush past in a blur of meetings, deadlines, and deliverables. Others leave a great impact.
2025 was the second kind for us. Across languages, borders, roles, and system design pressures, people showed up to learn together, to figure things out in real time, and to stay in the work without burning out or disappearing. That shaped how and where we moved last year.
At Masson & Associates, our work sits across three core areas. This reflection looks back at the year through our areas of service.
- Creative learning and development
At the start of the year, we designed and delivered the CBPF Advisory Board Learning Programme, working with Advisory Board members across 21 countries and four working languages.
Sessions were spaced, materials lived in shared repositories, and Weekly Digests became a resource that helped members stay oriented even when they missed a session because governance work took precedence, or when others returned weeks later needing to reconnect quickly with the learning program cycle.
Over the year, we facilitated 19 learning sessions, producing learning handouts, session reports and briefs, and a set of governance tools, trends, and tactics for participants to use in meetings, advocacy conversations, peer learning and donor engagements.
By the end of the programme, 18 participants received Certificates of Participation for attending at least 70% of sessions, recognising their commitment to professional development and effective Board contribution. 16 participants received Certificates of Recognition for consistently demonstrating leadership, collaboration, and learning engagement.
One participant wrote to us afterwards:
“What a pleasure to receive this recognition! Thank you very much for the certificates of participation and recognition. It is an honour to know that my efforts have been appreciated. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have participated in this programme, which has not only been an enriching experience, but also a real driving force for my professional development. A big thank you to the whole team for their support and recognition.”
Our self-assessment evaluation data showed that participants rated relevance at 4.2/5, confidence in explaining their Board role at 4.7/5, and 8 out of 9 reported applying what they learned directly in practice. By the end of the year, several participants were already stepping into informal mentoring roles for newer Board members.
Alongside this, we designed and co-implemented ForumCiv’s Artivism Fellowship, supporting Cohort 3 (2025). From over 600 applications, 20 artivists from Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania were selected and onboarded into a five-month learning journey.
The cohort learning safari was a comprehensive journey, featuring an in-person residency in Naivasha, Kenya, then we transitioned to virtual sessions and structured one-on-one coaching with fellows’ capstone project showcase, during the in-person residency and halfway through the online learning sessions, and finally 20 project presentations from the fellows at the end of the project in December 2025.
A diverse faculty, drawn from our network of associates, guided the work across several key areas: Wangui Mahehu anchored wellbeing, emotional regulation, and holding space for heavy material. Alix Masson designed and delivered the coaching elements, focusing on decision-making and agency. Dr. Njuki Githethwa supported systems thinking and social justice analysis, and anchored the foundations of artivism with depth. James Wamathai strengthened digital safety practices and ongoing resource awareness. Brian Afande worked with fellows on opening up immersive technologies as practical tools for narrative power and accessibility. Mwaura Timothy ensured the stories and learning journeys were carefully documented and presented.
Remarkably, every single fellow completed the programme; we reported a 100% completion rate!
By the end of the fellowship, our self-assessment M&E frameworks showed familiarity with narrative strategy tools rose from 2.9 to 4.7, 68% reported increased confidence in digital activism and safety, and 100% of fellows attended the coaching sessions offered.
The cohort also co-designed a regional Community of Practice, outlining how they want to keep learning and supporting one another beyond the fellowship.
Across both learning programmes, the consistency of participation reflected the importance of designing learning that supports people as whole practitioners.
- Strategic communications and advocacy
In our strategic communications and advocacy work, we partnered with Wangu Kanja Foundation to translate survivor and worker testimony from Kenya’s tea sector into public knowledge products that could travel across advocacy, policy, and accountability spaces.
The work resulted in two publications released with Oxfam in March 2025: Tea Leaves a Mark, a survivor-centred case study, and Change the Way You Do Business, a business-facing briefing paper.
Once published, the materials moved far beyond their original audience. They were cited by the Corporate Justice Coalition, referenced in Oxfam GB’s Modern Slavery Statement, included in Fairtrade UK’s Brew it Fair report, discussed in a Scottish Parliament Cross-Party Group, and hosted by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.
The work also fed back into Wangu Kanja Foundation’s own research and advocacy, strengthening arguments against audit-only compliance approaches and pushing for accountability for women workers’ lived realities.
The problem was clear: survivor voices are often collected, but rarely carried into spaces where decisions are made. Our work helped shift that, giving the evidence a longer life and wider reach.
3. Strategy, Research, and Design
Our strategy, research, and design work helped prototype diverse projects.
With Putika Watoto Atelier, we worked on a home-learning education curriculum responding to the lack of affordable, quality early childhood education. We prototyped a learning programme for children aged 3–6, working closely with two children throughout the process.
At the end-of-year showcase, children demonstrated what they had learned through play, storytelling, and practical activities. Since then, a learning faculty has been assembled to carry the work forward, and by the end of January 2026, four additional families had enrolled their children.
With NurtureFirst, we supported the packaging and dissemination of a national mapping report on home-based childcare in Kenya. The report documents 5,350 providers caring for 21,784 children across Murang’a, Kisumu, and Mombasa counties.
Our role focused on shaping the communications strategy, refining the organisation’s value proposition, and producing dissemination tools that could extend the life of the research. The mapping has already informed local interventions, provider networks, and early policy conversations at the county level.
Closing the year
None of this work happens alone.
We’re grateful to our partners, collaborators, faculty, associates, and the many practitioners who trusted us with their time, stories, and labour. Over the year, we strengthened a growing network of associates who continue to shape how we work and what we’re able to sustain together.
As we move into 2026, we’ll be sharing more about what we’re building next and how we’re thinking about sustaining learning, care, and practice over time.
If you’d like to stay close to the work, follow our updates and reflections on LinkedIn, or get in touch via support@massonassociates.africa to explore how we might work together.