Nathan Mpangala's nickname is Kijastibikozi (short: Kijasti), Swahili slang meaning 'vest'.
Nathan Mpangala was born on 1 december 1970 and completed secondary school in Kibasila in 1990. He underwent a two-year course in Fine Art in 1990-92, which was organised by Kinondoni Young Artists in Dar es Salaam. Other training that he has attended include a course on Behavior Change and Communication in 1995, a Design Workshop and a National Artist Training Workshop based on Child's Rights in 1996 in Dar es Salaam.
At the moment, Mpangala is working as a cartoonist for newspapers and as an illustrator for educational publications. His aims are to go international, Nathan intends to follow an animation course and to design his own website.
His hope for the future is for cartoonists to start working together more closely, and for their work to be respected internationally.
In an effort to create unity among Tanzanian cartoonists, the Popular Association of Cartoonists in Tanzania (PACT) was started out in the year 2000. Mpangala is the chairman of PACT. He's also a member of the Tanzania Sports Writers Association (TASWA) and TAPOMA (Tanzania Popular Media Association).
Since 1994, Mpangala has worked as a freelance journalist for various publications including The Express, Dar Leo, Uhuru, Mwananchi, Mfanyakazi, Dimba, Sanifu, Majira, Nipashe, Spoti, Uwazi and Maisha. He also worked with development organizations such as the Tanzania AIDS Project (TAP); AMREF (Tanzania); the National Electoral Commission (NEC); the Environmental Policy Institutional Strengthening Project (EPIQ) and LEAT.
For his work he received various awards, including a Certificate of Appreciation by USAID (Tanzania) in 1996 for the role he played in sensitising Tanzanian society about the effects of HIV/AIDS and STDs.
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