RLRyan Lenora Brown

1. Article · Aug 20, 2026 · Ryan Lenora Brown

   On the youngest continent in the world, a push for more kid-friendly cities (opens the original)

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   Aug. 20, 2026, 3:20 p.m. ET | Johannesburg, South Africa; and Nairobi, Kenya Peninah Ndegwa spent years studying urban planning, but one of her most instructive moments in the field occurred far from a classroom. In 2018, she was walking through downtown Nairobi with her baby strapped to her back when, suddenly and urgently, her daughter needed a diaper change. Ms. Ndegwa scanned the streets around her, but there was nowhere to go – no clean public toilets, no public changing stations. “That was

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2. Article · Aug 12, 2026 · Ryan Lenora Brown

   Dear Pen Pal, how far is South Africa from Mexico? (opens the original)

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   Aug. 11, 2026, 9:08 p.m. ET | Johannesburg On a bright Saturday morning in February, I stood in front of a classroom in Johannesburg and announced triumphantly to the 30 kids seated in front of me: “We’re getting pen pals!” Rows of blank faces stared back at me. I waited. They waited. Finally, one girl raised her hand. “Ma’am,” she began tentatively, “what is a pen pal?” I was born in the United States at the end of the 1980s – a time these kids earnestly refer to as “the 1900s.” That makes me p

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