Donna Kay Kakonge, M.A.
– Sole Proprietor www.donnakakonge.com
Core Competencies:
Education Journalism
Broadcast Writing
Book Publishing Visual Arts
Since 1992,
Donna Kakonge has freelanced in the cultural and performing arts, as well as
worked in the government sector. She began by working on a breakthrough show
for youth called “Road Movies” which
aired on CBC. Following this, she worked at the local, national and international
levels of both CBC Radio and Television, mainly in Toronto. Kakonge was
involved with the start of a first-ever morning show aired on shortwave to
sub-Saharan Africa called “African Eyes.” While an Announcer/Producer for this
show, she was sent on special assignment to Edmonton to meet Canadian diplomats
and Nigerian author/activist Dr. Wole Soyinka.
Kakonge has
also worked for the Discovery Channel, Discovery Channel International,
Vision-TV (for now S-Vox), and the BBC. She keeps up with the latest technology
in broadcasting by maintaining a podcast online and has produced a CD of radio
documentaries, as well as two audio downloads narrated by her that are
available on Lulu.com.
She has done
television appearances as a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and
Long-Term Care’s Tele-Health program through commercials that aired all over
Ontario, as well as guest appearances on the W Network, Food Network and “Breakfast
Television.” She has been a fashion model for print and runway, represented by
Tony Eastwood Talent Agency which also represented Neve Campbell at the same
time. She has done art modeling for the
Toronto Art School, Etobicoke School of the Arts, Durham College, Arts and
Letters Club, Maxx the Mutt Animation School and many others.
Art modeling
was not Kakonge’s first time in the classroom. She assisted in teaching
undergraduate and graduate students at Carleton University in Ottawa. She also
received a Bachelor of Journalism degree from this school and received an award
funded by now Senator Pamela Wallin. She assisted and also had sole-responsibility
for classes taught at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, as well as closer
to home at Concordia University in Montréal. She speaks French fluently.
She has
taught journalism at the University of Guelph-Humber and Humber College. She
has taught Canadian Broadcasting and Online Marketing at Trebas Institute, as
well as Skills for College English at George Brown College. Kakonge has also
taught ESL at Sullivan Language Learning Centre in Montréal, Institute
Provincial in Montréal and TEC Inc. Other
teaching experiences includes the day programs in Seneca College’s and
Centennial College’s journalism programs. With Seneca she taught York
University students in the joint program and with Centennial, University of
Toronto students in the joint program. She has also taught
Dramatic Writing at Ryerson University’s Chang School of Continuing Education.
Kakonge is a PhD student at OISE/University of Toronto in
Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Development.
Kakonge is working on her dissertation with a survey completed with 100
responses, media interviews and is currently managing the first-ever online
course about black hair politics. She recently received a TESOL certificate
from LinguaEdge and has a Master
of Arts degree in Media Studies from Concordia University where she built a
website back in 1999 called Salon Utopia that included her own artwork,
photographs and creative stories. She has also taken numerous courses in
languages, creative writing, script-writing and broadcasting. She recently received
a Québecor Documentary Fellowship that ended in 2009. She has presented at many
conferences and worked for the provincial government in the Ministry of
Citizenship and Immigration.
Kakonge is
the author of 40 books that are both self-published and published by Lulu.com (http://stores.lulu.com/kakonged). One is published by Concordia University
called Headlight Anthology. Her books
are available on Amazon Kindle. Since
2007, she has had a multimedia online magazine called Donna (http://kakonged.wordpress.com)
which is currently top-ranked in Google.