Local Partner: Center for Culture, Indigenous Knowledge and Experiential Learning. (CCIKEL)
Indigenous languages in northern Kenya are under threat due to the erosion and diminished levels of uptake and transmission. This project aims to document, protect, promote and transmit mother tongue to the current and future generations. It will address the lack of written materials, formal teaching methodology and teaching aids. It aims to highlight the importance of mother tongue education, to make it attractive to children, strengthen Burraaq Culture Schools and involve parents and other stakeholders in all efforts. New forms of teaching will be achieved by engaging knowledgeable elders, traditional specialists and hiring local teachers who are well versed with formal and informal teaching methods. Teaching aids and materials will also be generated and produced at the center.
The project will give urban born children opportunities to interact with rural children through joint field excursions, indoor debates in vernacular language, working with community resource persons (teachers, mentors) and acquiring traditional skills through hands-on experience.
The project includes equipping of existing Cultural Education Resource Centre (library) to improve the existing printing and publishing capacity and also establishment of a botanical garden with variety of herbal plants species.
The initiative on language provided the school children opportunity to appreciate the context in which their mothetongue and flourished and learnt that the preservation of a language is dependent on a holistic preservation of biocultural diversity. The children were excited and willing to participate in activities that enhanced their use of mother tongue. Even those with low vocabulary in vernacular freely struggled to express themselves and make their points in debates.
Local Partner:
Established in 2014 in Gotu, Isiolo County, Kenya, the Center for Culture, Indigenous Knowledge and Experiential Learning (CCIKEL) strives to nurture, reorient and cultivate proud, respectful, culturally grounded, visionary youth who are aware of themselves, their identity and practice positive ethnicity.
