Yvonne Ndege

Early life

Ndege grew up in the Royal Borough of Greenwich in London, England. Her parents were from Nairobi, in Kenya, and emigrated to the UK in the 1970s.

Ndege attended primary and secondary school in the London Borough of Bexley. She graduated in Social Sciences from the University of London′s Goldsmith's College, with a 2.1 degree, in 1998 and started working for the BBC at Television Centre in West London. After two years, she returned to academic study and took a Master's degree in Political Science at the London School of Economics; she achieved her higher degree in 1999, also with a 2.1 classification.

Career

Ndege began her career with at the BBC as a Researcher between 1998-1999, on Panorama. Between 2000 and 2005, she worked as a producer on Newsnight, including during the show's coverage of the September 11 attacks. Between 2005 and 2007 Ndege worked as a correspondent on BBC Breakfast. During her time as a Breakfast Correspondent, she reported from across the UK and European Union and the US, on a range of domestic and international affairs.

Since 2007 Ndege has worked for the Qatar based satellite television channel Al Jazeera English. She joined as the East Africa Correspondent in Nairobi. During her time in the region Yvonne covered many international news stories, including the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2009, she was jointly awarded the UN Correspondent's Association Prize for journalism for her reports from the region. Yvonne also covered the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya, in which more than 1500 people were killed. Yvonne has interviewed the President's of Congo, South Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria and the Prime Minister of Kenya. In 2010 she launched Al Jazeera English's presence in Nigeria, setting up the channel's office, and appearing as the on-air face of the channel. As a Correspondent she has reported from all 36 states of Nigeria, and from most countries in West Africa. In Nigeria she has covered the ongoing Islamic uprising in northern Nigeria, perpetrated by Boko Haram. Across the region Yvonne has reported news from Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Angola, Niger Republic, Chad, Guinea Conakry, Equatorial Guinea, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2009 she was the co-recipient of the silver prize of the United Nations Foundations Prize, awarded by the United Nations Correspondents Association, for her work in the Democratic Republic of Congo.