Professionals champion revival of Taita culture

The Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK) Taita Taveta diocese, elders, and professionals have launched an ambitious program to sensitize the local community on the need to preserve Taita culture and unity for prosperity.

The diocese said the cultural education programme is aimed at preserving the Taita culture that has been eroded due to the infiltration of the Western cultures and also sensitize the local community on the need to embrace unity for socio-economic and political development.

Speaking in a hotel in Mwatate Sub County, the leaders led by ACK Bishop Liverson Mng’onda, said their aim was to promote and preserve the Taita language (Wakitina) that is slowly diminishing and promotion of indigenous foods.

Mng'onda said the forums will enable the youths to learn more about Taita and Taveta songs, music, and traditional dances.

In his summon in the local dialect titled, “Faith as a pillar of unity in Taita Taveta development,” Mng’onda noted that the Taita language is facing extinction and every effort must be made to revive and strengthen it for the benefit of future generations.

“The future generations will not be happy because the Taita language is slowly dying. The community’s cultural practices have also faded under the influence of Western civilization and this cultural education program is geared towards promoting Indigenous vegetables and foods, preservation of cultural values of which the Taita people have always enjoyed expressing themselves through music,” said Mng’onda.

He noted that disunity among elected leaders, jealousy, and witch-hunt remains a major challenge facing the local community that should stand firm to protect and defend its deprived land rights by outsiders.

“We have decided to use the Kitaita language in all our forums to disseminate information and help unite the disfranchised local community. As leaders we have also resolved to support one another in times of need, happiness, and sorrow,” he said.

Douglas Madeda, the Taita Taveta Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association chairperson (KESSHA), noted traditional norms, songs, and dances are fading away.

“Our responsibility as professionals is to sensitise the local community on the need to preserve different cultural values for the benefit of the future generation because culture has for a long time been used as a powerful tool for instruction, education and preparation of the young for adult roles. So, we cannot allow it to fade away,” said Madeda.

Eldoro Girls principal Ms Florence Msaghu said they have come together to address the community’s deprived land rights by outsiders and the acute shortage of local teachers in the region.

Other programmes initiated include improving education standards for future generations, unlocking employment opportunities for the youth, empowering native leadership in schools, nurturing Taita boys and girls for future leadership and leadership in the community.

The forum’s chairperson Alfred Msafari said though the traditional dances and songs are waning in popularity owing to cultural erosion and religion, they are still performed in areas like Mwanda, Mbololo and Kasigau.

He said the dances give meaning to the stages of life and communicate status transformation in the community.

Msafari, a secondary school teacher, observed that participation in the dances offers a lot of benefits to the child in terms of physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and aesthetic development.