By Robby Malama, Global Accelerator Program Fellow

It was not a revelation or sudden instinct. It was not a “sixth sense” or divine inspiration. I did not “hear the calling.” All the good things in my life can be traced back not to something grand like that … but to a social media post. 

(I am a Millennial, after all. I was born in 2001, in Zambia.)

It was a social media post I came across that spotlighted a young man for his work in Nigeria. This was during the #EndSARS movement, which had already drawn my attention to that country. Out of curiosity, I checked out the page he’d been featured on. 

The page was African Students For Liberty.

That’s why I joined SFL, in a nutshell. I joined that July — July of 2022, a month before I turned 21. About four years after that, in June of 2026, I reached the pinnacle of my career with SFL: I created Beyond Borders, a 19-minute documentary that explores cross-border trade between Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. I paired the footage and storytelling with policy research to tell a compelling story about how regulatory barriers stifle trade and human agency at the border.

The Journey Begins

I had gotten my first taste of activism in 2016, when a national innovation project of mine was recognised through Zambia’s Junior Engineers, Technicians and Scientists (JETS) programme. Then, between 2018 and 2020, I volunteered with Restless Development, working through their Tikambe Youth Media Project and a partnership with BBC Media Action. 

It sounds tidy written down like that, but in practice, it meant delivering sexual and reproductive health education to more than 800 adolescents across 10 schools and three clinics in the town of Kabwe, running over a dozen youth workshops, and helping link more than 200 young people to health services in six different facilities. I led five health campaigns and three policy dialogues that changed the lives of more than 500 people.

That’s also where I first picked up a camera with any real intention.

Through BBC Media Action, I trained in photography, videography, radio production, and journalism — skills I assumed at the time were just useful extras. They turned out to be the foundation of everything that came after.

SFL Multiplied My Passion — and My Impact 

In 2022, when I started with SFL, I got my first real taste of shaping communications strategy for an organization, rather than just contributing to one.

By May 2024, I had earned the responsibility of coordinating strategy and operations for dozens of volunteers nationwide, and mentoring chapter leaders. In July 2025, I stepped into a communications internship at the continental level, managing social media across a dozen active digital channels and contributing to thousands of monthly impressions.

That internship became a stepping stone. As of June 2026, I’m leading the regional communications function across Southern Africa, overseeing multidisciplinary teams — including supporting more than 400 local volunteers. I also mentor 25 communications volunteers.

Beyond Borders & the Fellowship that Changed Everything

Ultimately, one achievement means more to me than anything else. It was the culmination of my career, and my life, up to this point: I’m a 2026 Global Accelerator Program (GAP) Fellow.

The Global Accelerator Program is Students For Liberty’s leadership accelerator for young liberty advocates around the world. Over nine months, selected fellows design and execute real-world projects in their own communities — from policy research to grassroots organizing — with the backing of funding, structured training, and one-on-one mentorship from experienced professionals. GAP is built on a deliberate model: Fellows are not handed projects to implement; they bring their own ideas, and GAP equips them to execute. 

Read about another standout GAP project: “This Will Travel”: An Oral History of a Groundbreaking Documentary

That fellowship, funded and run through Students For Liberty, is the reason Beyond Borders: Implementing Zambia’s 2025 Border Reforms, An Investigative Media & Policy Initiative exists.

The idea came from something I kept noticing in my communications work: Policymakers talk about trade reform in macro terms, GDP figures, ease-of-business rankings … but they miss the lived reality of the Zambian entrepreneur actually moving goods across the border. 

The clearing agent fees. The wait times. The redundant paperwork that can eat up to 30% of a shipment’s value. I could go on and on.

GAP gave me the structure and the backing to build something that could track the journey of a product from our capital, Lusaka, to the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo. At first, it was only documentary storytelling and field reporting, but it turned into a policy brief and roundtable that officials can actually act on.

The Beyond Borders project brought together all of the interests I had been developing over the years: communications, public policy, trade, governance, and evidence-based advocacy. 

The opportunity — and those skills — would not have been possible without the support provided through the Students For Liberty Global Accelerator Program. It’s the project that pulled together everything I’d been moving toward since the JETS competition in 2016 — and it wouldn’t exist without SFL’s fellowship making possible the leap from “communications professional” to “founder of an investigative media initiative.” 

What I Learned & Parting Thoughts

The main thing I learned from this project is: Narratives are never neutral. How an organization, a country, or a region tells its own story shapes what it believes is possible. You can have the best-designed campaign or the most rigorous policy research in the room, but if nobody can translate it into something people actually connect with, it goes nowhere.

That instinct — that someone has to make research legible — is what’s pulling me toward something more deliberate now. My focus is no longer only on communicating ideas, but on shaping how evidence itself is produced, interpreted, and used in public decision-making.

My work on Beyond Borders has sharpened this focus, reinforcing the need for structured evidence that reflects how systems actually function, not only how they’re designed.

Editor’s Note: Robby is discussing publication and promotion of Beyond Borders with several potential media partners. This page will be updated with a link when it’s published.

I intend to keep growing within Students For Liberty. The organization has been a formative environment for my development, and I see real value in giving back to it. Because my mission — my calling — is clearer now than ever before. Indeed, SFL has helped clarify it: to find that thin line where information becomes policy, and where communication leads to institutional change toward more freedom.

Robby Malama is SFL’s Regional Coordinator for Marketing & Communication in Africa, while working toward two degrees: a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Development Studies.