“On March 13th 2020, the first COVID-19 case in Kenya was reported and that was just a prelude to a “new normal” where schools, markets and offices folded operations. However, despite the pandemic sending chills down everyone’s spine, another crisis was building up at an alarming rate – job losses and lack of safe, affordable and nutritious food. Formerly viewed as a “village thing”…rural thing, kitchen gardens have become a…
Category: featured
the memory of seeds and indigenous resurgence in tharaka, kenya
“In the global North, it has become more common to declare that indigenous peoples hold the solutions to the climate crisis. Such rhetoric risks being only lip-service if solutions don’t recognise and resource indigenous-led work to repair damage to indigenous cultures, commit to indigenous resurgence and integrate the wisdom of indigenous values. After decades of shame, suppression and devaluation, much indigenous knowledge held by groups like the Tharaka has been…
why we should study afrikan history
“Tracing African pasts through the interlinked lenses of agency, possibility and imagination allows us to counter narratives of Africa as a blank slate, to challenge the privileging of whiteness and Europeanness, and to debunk myths about Africans as people who are destructive or unchanging. It allows us to illuminate diverse possibilities of human living to build on, against the hegemony of a present moment that unsees and devalues us. For…
decolonising the african spirit
“After seven years of being on the journey I can say that I have arrived at several shores of knowing and understanding that I would like to share for anyone else who might be undertaking a similar exploration. Even more however, I have begun to wonder about the silence around African spirituality, and its persistent labelling as sorcery or devilish, an inheritance of missionary colonialism. As a researcher of the…
on using the right structures in transformative work – simon mitambo
Are traditions simply a thing of old that are interesting but not relevant to the world we live in today? In my last blogpost for Transition Network I sat down with Simon Mitambo to hear more about how he is using traditional governance structures from his Tharaka community to revive cultural and biological biodiversity, and connecting with other communities doing similar work across Africa. With the organisation he set up,…
going farther together for peace and sustainability – lvpsc
The Lake Victoria Peace and Sustainability Centre is based on Rusinga Island on Nam Lolwe, the source of the Nile. I visited with this network of organisations on the invitation of Solomon who I met during the Non Violent Communication training I attended last year. The network is made up of about 30 organisations that work on different issues on the island including childrens’ safety, food security, beach maintenance, fishers’…