Natachi O. (IN A NUTSHELL)

Natachi Onwuamaegbu writes about race, art, and culture with bylines at The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, The Boston Globe, Seattle Times and 5280 magazine. Currently, Onwuamaegbu is one of five global Fulbright-National Geographic fellows. During her Kenya-based fellowship, she created "Braiding Nairobi," a multiplatform storytelling site which aims to tell the stories and complexities of the female hair braiders in Kenyatta Market, Nairobi.

Onwuamaegbu is exploring the economic opportunities in Kenyatta by interviewing female hair braiders and the key players who make decisions that dictate the lives of the hair braiders. Kenyatta market is a place for Kenyan women to find economic liberation – young women can start businesses and support their families – but it can also be a place of economic entrapment. Women are paid impossibly low wages under bosses with no legal responsibility and have no healthcare or job security. Natachi posts her research on the Field Notes National Geographic site along with braidingnairobi.com and is now collecting these narratives into a book.

Since creating "Braiding Nairobi" in September 2022, Natachi has realized the greater need for storytelling and social entrepreneurship centering African women. Through her brand new company, the "Ndeza Collective," Natachi is combining the power of storytelling with technology, accessibility, and the gig economy, to expand past the borders of Kenyatta Market, Nairobi, and Kenya.

Natachi is also producing and starring in "Crushing," a show of monologues about messy romantic love, which just completed a sold-out run in NYC. A documentary about the show is in production. In 2022, Onwuamaegbu graduated from Stanford University with Honors and a 3.95 GPA. She majored in Political Science and minored in Creative Writing and African and African American Studies.