By way of Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Youth Fellowship Program, we help the management of Indigenous youth in advocating and striving for brand spanking new methods of safeguarding their lands, cultures, and languages. Right here, we uplift three youth fellowship initiatives associated to the revitalization of languages and cultures.
Youth Group Tulwoob Koony (Ogiek and Koony) from Kenya
Space of focus: Revitalization of Indigenous Languages
Radio serves as the first mode of communication in lots of rural communities resulting from its vast attain. For Indigenous Peoples, group radio performs an important function in revitalizing and preserving their tradition, particularly on the subject of safeguarding their language. Within the Mount Elgon area of Kenya, the Ogiek group depends on Tulwoob Koony Radio as a trusted supply of data, music, and leisure whereas concurrently bolstering the civic and cultural features of their group. With the help of the radio station and Cultural Survival’s fellowship program, a bunch of youth from this group initiated a challenge that centered on the revitalization of the endangered Koony language.
James Kwemoi (Ogiek), Ruth Chesang (Ogiek), Miriam Naibei (Koony), and Emmanuel Kiplimo (Ogiek) are a crew of youth from the Ogiek group of Mount Elgon working to actively promote their Indigenous roots, cultures, and languages by way of group radio and multimedia platforms. On the coronary heart of their fellowship challenge is their concern concerning the decline of Koony language audio system.
Their fellowship challenge, “Revitalizing the Endangered Koony Language,” goals to extend the variety of fluent Koony audio system and create consciousness concerning the significance of selling and strengthening the Koony language and tradition. Numerous actions have been undertaken to attain these objectives, together with Koony language lessons that gave adults, youth, and youngsters entry to supporting language studying supplies to assist reclaim their mom tongue. Neighborhood volunteers have been educated in Koony language and tradition as a way to create wholesome, nurturing areas earlier than conducting a sequence of workshops in class school rooms to have interaction the youthful era. These periods have been recorded and shared on digital and social media retailers in an effort to proceed the training course of.
Radio performed a pivotal function in broadcasting recordings of the Koony language, enabling the youthful era to have interaction with their favourite packages whereas concurrently revitalizing the endangered language. James commented, “Talking the Koony language is a direct hyperlink to our previous and cultural heritage.”
For Indigenous languages like Koony, radio serves as a essential platform for language revitalization and the exploration of native tradition. Youth initiatives on language revitalization and group radio play important roles in preserving Indigenous languages and cultures from the brink of extinction, making certain that they proceed to thrive inside communities like Ogiek and past.
Patricia Dinyando (Khew San) from Namibia
Space of Focus: Revitalization of Indigenous Languages
Patricia Dinyando (Khew San) is a third-year scholar on the College of Namibia pursuing a bachelor’s diploma in schooling. Hailing from a Khwe San group, for the previous 5 years, she has volunteered on the Girls’s Management Heart, contributing to its mission of empowering ladies to actively take part in shaping coverage. As well as, she serves as a facilitator for the Younger San Girls and San Ladies Group the place she performs an important function empowering and supporting ladies.
Patricia and her crew of fellows, Johanna D. Mbamba, Johanna Ngugwe, Kalipa Dickson, Moses Rosinah, and Moses Dingombo, developed the challenge, “Khwe Yicerengu xi (Khwe Folktales).” Their collective effort goals to create a youngsters’s e-book of folktales which have been instructed for generations of their group. The e-book will promote the Khwedam language, which isn’t formally acknowledged or taught in colleges, and function a culturally responsive educating useful resource for the youth of the Khe group and generations to come back.
Partaking with Elders and abolishing the stereotype that they weren’t educated was essentially the most passionate facet of the challenge for Patricia and her crew. Patricia stated that previously, younger individuals have been made to imagine that they did not have a writing system and could not write of their languages. “We found that there are books written in Khwedam languages, and so we additionally determined that we have been going to create our personal,” she stated.
By way of this challenge, the fellows additionally had a chance to accumulate and additional develop expertise in collaboration, problem-solving, and communication—expertise that will probably be instrumental in persevering with their work. “Sooner or later, we plan to determine a library or an area the place we are able to retailer quite a few copies of the e-book. The library will probably be a spot the place the crew can proceed educating the Khwe language and tradition. It would provide entry to tales and books, offering an area for conferences and studying. Younger individuals could have the chance to borrow and browse books,” Patricia stated.
Cultural Survival’s Indigenous Youth Fellowship program is designed to help the autonomy of fellows and their initiatives whereas recognizing the communication challenges rural Indigenous communities face. “The understanding from the coordinating crew and their help, particularly throughout difficult occasions associated to connectivity and communication obstacles, was essential,” Patricia stated. Because the fellows concerned within the Khwe Folktale challenge persevered to show their goals into actuality, “the thought of this challenge was as soon as simply in our minds and appeared not possible. We really recognize that one thing we envisioned turned a actuality, and your belief in us contributed to this. We lengthen our gratitude to Cultural Survival,” Patricia stated.
Adonis Clifford Ortiz (Rama) from Nicaragua
Space of Focus: Revitalization of Indigenous Languages
Adonis Clifford Ortiz McRea (Rama) was born and raised within the Indigenous group of Rama Cay, south of the municipality of Bluefields, Nicaragua, and holds a level in enterprise administration from Bluefields Indian and Caribbean College. Adonis has labored on a number of initiatives in his group that concentrate on the safety of the land and of Rama tradition with an emphasis on capacity-building and youth empowerment.
Along with Yanetcy Arely McRea Daniel and Ernie Hamilton Martinez Omier, Adonis applied a challenge, “Preservation and Revitalization of the Cultural and Linguistic Id of Younger Rama Indigenous Folks in Nicaragua.” Their challenge centered on the Indigenous group of Indian River and Rama Cay, situated within the Rama territory on the south coast of the Caribbean, with the target of strengthening cultural identification among the many youth by way of a sequence of cultural and creative actions.
The challenge consisted of two studying alternatives for the youth. The primary was a sequence of portray workshops the place individuals realized totally different drawing and portray strategies. On the finish of those workshops, every participant introduced and defined the that means of their work. The second was a language course organized to strengthen the Rama language utilizing a combination of group work and particular person research. The emphasis of vocabulary observe, phrase-building, and singing in Raman allowed for a greater assimilation of fundamental language data.
Moreover, the crew held two group cultural occasions. The primary occasion was organized within the Indian River group for youngsters and youth to boost consciousness concerning the significance of preserving the cultural identification of Rama Peoples by way of the observe of their traditions. A number of actions enlivened this occasion, together with spear-throwing contests, track interpretations, and question-and-answer periods. The second cultural occasion came about on the Worldwide Day of Indigenous Peoples within the Rama Cay group. Attended by youth and adults, the occasion was a chance for sharing data and elevating consciousness concerning the significance of preserving Rama cultural identification alive.
Lastly, the fellowship crew produced a sequence of movies and panels with messages within the Rama language for linguistic preservation and revitalization, aided by the participation of Rama youth. The actions could have a long-lasting impression as they have been led by and for Indigenous youth. This challenge represents, for Adonis and the youth, the battle and hope to maintain their ancestral language alive throughout the Rama Indigenous communities of Nicaragua.
