Our arts and culture program provides a unique and engaging platform to equip and empower the young people living in our core focus location of Kariobangi Slum, Nairobi.
Ngunzo Zetu, Kiswahili for “Our Foundations”, is our Arts and culture initiative. Just like sports, performing arts provides a great way of reaching out to people and helping them develop as persons. Apart from its usage in edutainment, Ngunzo Zetu aims to:
- Empower young people to expose their talents;
- Educate the community through music, drama and dance (edutainment);
- Enable the urban youths to celebrate and preserve their cultures despite being brought up in the urban areas where the populace is cosmopolitan.
Through our partnership with Tarumbeta Africa, we hold a two-monthly Participatory Educative Theatre in the open spaces in our community. We use this edutainment platform to raise and address common social issues such as HIV/AIDS, drug use and abuse, gender-based violence, stereotypes and misconceptions and gender inequality.
These shows are also used as opportunities to engage with the community members by posing questions during and after, for example, a play or dance. Simama facilitators and peer educators are always in hand to help lead this engagement and offer guidance and counselli
Kiringongo African traditional Music
Since beginning of time, music and dancing continues to play a vital role in peoples ability to communicate,celebrate events, with an array of sounds announcing important ceremonies. In this regard, Dorothy Muchere has been instrumental in providing the vital cultural music lesson of Kiringongo Dance. The Kiringongo dance is a dance belonging to Chonyi which is amongst the Kenyan Mijikenda community, inhabiting coastal lines. The dance encompasses Kayamba which is a flat musical instrument which is a shaken idiophone, and marimba, a percussion instrument consisting of a set of wooden bars struck with yarn wrapped to produce musical sounds
