![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1711-Boy-who-harnessed-the-wind_Hero.jpg\")
The Royal Shakespeare Company cast. Image: Tyler Fayose<\/p>\nKamkwamba later went on to build more windmills and a solar-powered water pump to provide clean drinking water to the village.<\/p>\n
His story was told in a 2009 memoir The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, co-authored by US journalist Bryan Mealer. This was adapted into a film in 2019, directed and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor. It has now been made into a West End musical production by the Royal Shakespeare Company, with Ejiofor as executive producer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting,\u201d Kamkwamba says about the show. \u201cI have mixed feelings because I\u2019m reliving the past. Some of that past was exciting. Some of the past was very hard. But overall, I\u2019m very happy the story is being told in a musical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read more:<\/p>\n
There is tremendous hope to be found in the story of a brilliant young inventor \u2013 but Kamkwamba also faced significant hardship growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cHunger is a very difficult thing,\u201d the 38-year-old says. \u201cYou start craving food you don\u2019t like. In your mind, it\u2019s one of the most delicious foods you have ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Portion sizes kept shrinking, and Kamkwamba remembers thinking: \u2018Am I going to live to see tomorrow?\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHunger changes people,\u201d he adds. \u201cPeople you normally wouldn\u2019t think of stealing would steal food because they are so desperate.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are happy memories too. Just like any other child globally, Kamkwamba played games with friends, and they found ways to keep themselves entertained. He was an inventor from a young age, competing with friends to make the best toy car.<\/p>\n
If he could relive any day, it would be when he put up the windmill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI had been working on that project for a long time, and people were laughing at me. The day that it started working was very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Royal Shakespeare Company cast. Image: Tyler Fayose<\/p>\n
Slowly, the world started to hear about Kamkwamba. His invention was written about in local press, and he was invited to give a TED Talk in Tanzania in 2007.<\/p>\n
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Bryan Mealer had been a journalist in Africa for years before he met Kamkwamba. He had spent three years reporting on war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and he believes he was struggling with post-traumatic stress. He was looking for stories of Africa beyond death, disease and corruption.<\/p>\n
Mealer read about Kamkwamba in The Wall Street Journal and felt it was a story the world needed to hear \u2013 with a powerful message. \u201cA family like William\u2019s is not going to turn the tide on corruption and the dark forces that cause famine or the weather or climate change,\u201d says Mealer, who now works supporting people facing homelessness<\/a> in New York City.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think what this story shows is that salvation comes through community. It is a story of resilience. These long-entrenched systems of family and community had been shattered and blown apart. Everything was falling and dying. This family was struggling to stay together.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a 14-year-old boy who ended up doing it. He didn\u2019t let these dark forces defeat the dream.\u201d<\/p>\n Famines and food crises still rage across the world 25 years later. The climate crisis and global conflicts are causing ever deeper challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even in the UK, people are starving as poverty hits near-record levels. How does that make Kamkwamba feel? \u201cIt\u2019s very sad. This is one of the richest countries in the world and at the same time you see homelessness. I think sometimes it\u2019s about awareness and trying to find the best ways of getting people help.<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n \u201cI might have food that I end up putting in the trash, because I\u2019m not aware that somebody else doesn\u2019t have food. Having a system that can look at the best way of addressing that might help.\u201d<\/p>\n There is an African concept called Ubuntu, Kamkwamba explains, which means \u201cI am because we are\u201d. It\u2019s about rejecting individualism and embracing community. Kamkwamba was inspired by his grandmother \u2013 a woman who started making bricks even though this was believed to be men\u2019s work.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people asked her: \u2018Why are you doing this instead of your husband?\u2019 Her response inspired me. \u2018When your cloth is on fire, you don\u2019t wait for somebody else to put it out. You will first feel the heat.\u2019 I felt that heat of hunger. I felt like I should come up with a solution even though I\u2019m younger.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps children have the bravery to dream in ways that adults underestimate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe youth are the future leaders. The challenge is giving them the resources and space where they can be able to come up with those ideas,\u201d says Kamkwamba. He founded non-profit Moving Windmills in 2008 with entrepreneur Tom Rielly, who created the TED Fellows programme. It works in rural Malawi, with projects around water, malaria prevention, solar power and sustainable farming.<\/p>\n They are creating a Moving Windmills Innovation Centre, a learning centre which will bring together students and mentors to create solutions to Africa\u2019s challenges.<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n \u201cIt will bridge that gap for young people who have an idea and give them a space to use machines and work at designing a solution to everyday challenges in agriculture and energy,\u201d explains Kamkwamba.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n And perhaps a musical retelling of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind will inspire a new generation to dream.<\/p>\n \u201cHow many kids have been told to be quiet?\u201d asks Mealer. \u201cHere\u2019s a kid who didn\u2019t listen to the doubters and the naysayers and pursued this dream against horrific odds.<\/p>\n \u201cThe theatre production captures the power of community better than anything. The film is incredible. But being in a room with live people, the emotion comes out. In Africa, there\u2019s dancing and singing all the time. They captured that joy in this play. It\u2019s a joy that refuses to die.\u201d<\/p>\n Kamkwamba believes no one person can change the world, but individuals working together can make an enormous difference. \u201cWhen you are collecting firewood, you don\u2019t get all the wood at once, you start with one log and then another one and you make a bundle. That can make a great impact,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel proud of what I did, but the most exciting thing is that people reach out to me to tell me what they are doing in their own community. I was building the windmill to solve a problem we had at that time, but I didn\u2019t know that solution could impact other people across the globe. So, I\u2019m very happy.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind will run at Soho Place Theatre<\/a> from 29 April to 18 July.<\/p>\n Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this?\u00a0Get in touch and tell us more<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Change a vendor\u2019s life.<\/p>\n Buy from your local Big Issue vendor every week \u2013 and always take the magazine. It\u2019s how vendors earn with dignity and move forward.<\/p>\n You can also support online: Thank you for standing with Big Issue vendors.<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kamkwamba later went on to build more windmills and a solar-powered water pump to provide clean drinking water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1911,146,40074,85,1037,46,26182,1865,11055],"class_list":["post-370823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-africa","tag-entertainment","tag-from-the-magazine","tag-il","tag-interview","tag-israel","tag-theatre","tag-water","tag-wind-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1711-Boy-who-harnessed-the-wind_Drop_in_01.jpg\")
Alistair Nwachukwu stars in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. Image: Tyler Fayose<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/35-birthday-subs_FINAL_v3_800x250.jpg\")
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