In a city where conferences usually mean hotel tea, name tags, and panels no one remembers, the People Dialogue Festival feels different. You don’t attend it, you wander into it.

You’ll find a governor speaking under a tent, students questioning policy experts, activists arguing about the constitution over coffee, and someone live-tweeting a budget conversation like it’s a football match. Somewhere nearby, there is probably spoken word, a podcast recording, or a heated conversation about taxes happening between complete strangers.

Welcome to the People Dialogue Festival.

A brief backstory

The festival grew out of a simple but powerful idea: democracy is not supposed to live inside boardrooms.

Kenya’s constitution envisioned public participation as a living practice not a legal formality. But for many young people, governance often feels distant, technical, and frankly… intimidating. The People Dialogue Festival was designed to close that gap. Instead of citizens going to institutions, institutions come to citizens.

It turns civic engagement into a public space experience part town hall, part classroom, part street conversation.

Why it actually matters

Here’s the honest truth: most government decisions that shape our lives don’t trend on social media. Policies on housing, taxation, education funding, digital regulation, and county budgets quietly determine:

• what you pay for internet
• whether your job sector grows or shrinks
• how expensive food becomes
• what opportunities exist for youth and creatives

The festival does something rare it makes policy accessible. Not simplified, not watered down, but understandable. You can literally ask a public official a direct question and hear an answer in real time. That almost never happens in everyday life.

For students, creators, entrepreneurs, and young professionals, this is one of the few spaces where your curiosity about governance is not strange it’s welcomed.

The impact you don’t immediately see

Many conversations that later become national debates often start here first. Ideas get tested. Civil society organisations connect with government actors. Researchers meet implementers. Journalists discover stories. Young people realize they are allowed to have opinions about public policy.

The festival quietly trains citizens. It demystifies power. And once you understand how decisions are made, you stop feeling powerless.

Why you should actually attend

Attend because it is one of the rare Nairobi events where:

1. you can walk up to a policymaker and talk
2. you learn how budgets affect your rent
3. you understand taxes beyond Twitter arguments
4. you meet people building interesting civic projects
5. and you leave feeling slightly more informed than anxious

Also it’s surprisingly social. You will meet students, diplomats, activists, tech people, development practitioners, and curious Nairobians all in one place. If you care about Kenya’s future even a little bit, you’ll find your people here.

The real takeaway

Civic engagement doesn’t always look dramatic. Sometimes it looks like sitting under a tent listening to a conversation you didn’t know you needed to hear.

The People Dialogue Festival reminds us that democracy is not an event we watch every five years. It is a conversation we practice repeatedly, imperfectly, and publicly. And honestly, in a time when many citizens feel disconnected from decision-making, that conversation might be one of the most important gatherings we have.