Kenya Community Media Network (KCOMNET) is a non-profit organization and the national networking association for community media sector in Kenya. Community media engaged by KCOMNET include:

Community Radios

Community newsletters
Newsletters addressing socio-economic and local governance issues in the grassroots communities

Community artists


Community resource centres

Community cinema

Community noticeboards
Who are we?
KCOMNET was founded by a voluntary group of individuals, media practitioners, NGOs, and community media groups with an interest in development communications and promotion of community media in Kenya.
Over the years, KCOMNET has focussed its engagements on the development of community media in Kenya. The Network provides a platform for networking between community media, with other media stakeholders, and the general public. It also mobilizes resources for the development of community media in Kenya.
Why community media?
Community media are widely recognized as the most basic, most connecting and most essential forms of community communication for the development of grassroots communities.
The focus of community media on issues of utmost priority and concern to communities valiantly distinguish them from the mainstream commercial media. Owing to the fact that community media are established and sustained by non- profit entities means a media that is free and independent from commercial and state control other than the communities served. Community media is then the kind of media that is located in the deepest endeavors of human kind to be free from want of any kind.
Meet our team
Radio Stations
Counties
Journalists
Community media forms
Potential audience
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is KCOMNET?
What does KCOMNET do?
The Network provides a platform for networking between community media, with other media stakeholders, and the general public. It also mobilizes resources for the development of community media in Kenya.
Initially, KCOMNET saw as its core mandate the need to push for a regulatory framework that would suit the needs of community media. The network led in drafting a community broadcasting bill for presentation before a Presidential Task Force on Media Law that then was appointed to collect views on the possibility of drafting a new media law.
Our work 1996 - 2002
- Training and capacity building and
- Lobbying for an overall regulatory framework for broadcasting with special emphasis to community broadcasting.
KCOMNET’s work has over the years focused on advocacy to promote an enabling environment for community media. KCOMNET started by demanding constitutional and legal amendments, repeals and additions, which guarantee the freedoms of expression, information and communication. KCOMNET in particular examined the Kenya Broadcasting context and toward this end developed a position paper that was presented to the Kenyan Task Force on the Media Law and the Attorney General. Thereafter, the Network came up with a Bill on Community Broadcasting which was presented to the Task Force on Media Law. KCOMNET also generated position papers on the meaning of community media to remove the misconceptions that existed in the minds of most that equated community media to vernacular or tribal radio.
Our work 2003 - 2008
Our work 2008 - to date
KCOMNET has been supporting community radio stations in Kenya for the purpose of enabling them to take their rightful place as a distinct sector of the media that addresses pertinent and pressing issues at the grassroots communities. Community radio is distinct from the private and commercial media in that they are non-profit broadcasting initiatives that are established and sustained by civil society organisations at the grassroots communities.
The establishment and development of community radio station is based on five principles which are recognized globally as being the key pillars of community broadcasting: These are Community ownership, community service, community participation, a non-profit business model and independence (Coyer 2009, Fairbairn 2009).
Our attention is now focused in the consolidation and strengthening of community media sector in Kenya through four programmatic interventions: Networking, capacity building, content development and policy advocacy
How is KCOMNET governed?
The network is governed by a Steering Council comprised of 12 members (7 males and 5 females). Its secretariat based in Nairobi.
KCOMNET is affiliated to Amarc and East Africa Community Media Network.