The Wisdom in Murang’a County’s Documentation and Digitisation of Indigenous Knowledge
By Gitau wa Kung’u
profgitauwakung’u@gmail.com
Worth Noting:
- This is a very wisely thought program ought to be integrated by other counties too. In 4th Nov, 1998, the World Bank and Partnership for Information and Communication Technology for Africa (PICTA) published a framework for action on the documentation of indigenous knowledge (IK). This was to ensure encourage appreciation of global cultural diversity, and so foster relationship with, thus the developing the World Bank action plans.
- Founded on community practices, institutions, relationships and rituals, the publication says IK is the basis for setting sustainable development goals!
“A people without the knowledge of their past history, religion and culture are like a tree without roots,” so said Marcus Garvey, the father of Black Nationalism philosophy.
Yesterday, Murang’a County government in liaison with the National Museum of Kenya closed the one-week training on documentation and digitization of indigenous knowledge. Murang’a Deputy Governor Hon Stephen Munania said that the program shall entail the preservation and conservation of the county’s and in greater depth, the Agikuyu history and cultural heritage. The program was launched last week by Murang’a Youth, Sports and Culture CEC Hon Manoah Gachucha.
The program will collect and store primary data from the sacred Mùkùrwe wa Nyagathanga shrine and other sites on sectors such as traditional knowledge on herbal medicine, pottery, smelting and agriculture.
This is a very wisely thought program ought to be integrated by other counties too. In 4th Nov, 1998, the World Bank and Partnership for Information and Communication Technology for Africa (PICTA) published a framework for action on the documentation of indigenous knowledge (IK). This was to ensure encourage appreciation of global cultural diversity, and so foster relationship with, thus the developing the World Bank action plans.
Founded on community practices, institutions, relationships and rituals, the publication says IK is the basis for setting sustainable development goals!
Self-awareness is a very important value to possess for success and maturity. Enthralled in the throes of tremendous turnings, twistings, tugs and tags of cultural confrontations, most of the digital generation population has been vassaled in spiritual and psychological immaturity.
Do you often ask yourself: why are there so many teenager/youth suicides, love-triangle murders, crime, corruption and immorality? One of the answers is, negligible exposure to IK. How?
Attached to IK is African cultural philosophy that sustained the high degree of morality in our ancestral communities (where there is no prostitution) that only needed Christening, as Dr. Ludwig Krapf reported to the Church of Scotland after taking the Christian evangelisation mission to the coast and interior of East Africa.
How Christian Missionaries contrasted the high traditional African spiritual and moral orientation to Satanism that needed redemption and washing by the blood of the lamb is intriguing, considering the same in the current Christianised communities!
Documentation and digitisation of IK is a commendable first for the governments to come to the roots of planning and setting sustainable development goals. However, investment in ensuring that the objectives of implementing the action plan is indispensable. Digital technology makes this cheaper and more convenient.
A good teacher teaches their different students with different approaches and strategies by regarding individual student learning needs until the whole class performs better. What is a teacher if their class has with 4 grade A students and 30 grade D and E students?
Similarly, governments only rise if they base their policies and strategic plans with respectful consideration to their population’s respective cultural backgrounds but fall and/or remain redundant when they import everything including foreign laws, policies, and strategic plans. We won’t be dilly-dallying trying to cure the community if our forefathers had dispossessed imperial schools of thought for authentic ones, would we?
Now, how the program rolls and improves the administration style of Murang’a Governor H.E. Dr. Irungu Kang’ata will predict whether he grows and glows more to make the proverbial philosopher king.
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