It was Robert Allan who said that cultural differences should not separate us from each other, rather cultural diversity should bring a collective strength that benefits humanity.
Teenage girls at the Nakuru School have embarked on preaching this message among themselves and to residents of Nakuru town to enhance cohesion and integration in the area ahead of the upcoming general elections.
Fifteen-year-old Stacy Ngemu, 15-year-old Purity Leiser and 14-year-old Linda Jerop have roused enthusiasm about cultural diversity and the need for coexistence through the hidden agenda movement for unity with a view of helping to foster tolerance among Kenyans and enhance understanding about various cultures in Kenya.
On a sultry Saturday afternoon away from the hubbub of Nakuru city at Nakuru Girls School, the expansive football field is bustling with peculiar activities -construction of model traditional huts, preparation of various traditional cuisines, regalia and spectacular folk dances.
“On the school Menu today is a three course of 10 traditional meals from 10 cultural groups in the school complemented with a treat of cultural entertainment…everything prepared by students,’’ intimates Ngemu whose face is lit with excitement.
The teenage girls say the idea is born out of the need for each of their 1,200 colleagues to go back to their roots understand their culture, learn from other cultures by showcasing their folk ways and be ambassadors of positive change to their communities in the face of rapid erasure by pop culture.
Each one of them has contributed Sh.300 from their pocket money to put up the exposition where they hope to learn identification of various types of healthy traditional food, ways of preparing, preserving, eating them and even how to plant such foods for healthy diets.
The students clustered themselves in their ethnic groups with a view of showcasing the best of what they understand about their cultures to their colleagues, teachers and members from the neighbouring communities in the cosmopolitan area who dropped by to learn…and possibly to have a taste of various traditional cuisines.
A blend of the Akamba, Luhya and Kalenjin lunch, washed down by a South Sudanese traditional juice and dessert was the highlight of the day symbolic of how diversity can forge unity of purpose.
Ngemu observes that the juniors` exposition is meant to mirror and suggest an ideal situation on the rancorous social -political landscape of the country which she says is supposed to acknowledge and respect diversity of opinion among people of divergent political persuasions and coexistence among people from various cultures.
She wants the country`s political leaders and their supporters -participants in the political space -to emulate their cause by fostering peace, unity for the country approaches the general elections in August this year. Her sentiments were heartily echoed by representatives from other ethnic groups participating in the event.
Regina Bell, a South Sudanese immigrant studying in Nakuru, could not hide her excitement at the opportunity for she and four other girls of South Sudanese descent to showcase South Sudanese culinary skills, cuisine and a Dinka folk dance.
She says she has also learned about various cultures in Kenya and she is eager to practice some for she is hopeful that most cultures sat the students fair have values that can be invaluable to her well-being and a stable society.
Ngemu, who had an opportunity to learn how to cook and eat Kikuyu, Maasai and South Sudanese food says the initiative also inculcates among participants a sense of good neighborliness.
She argues that no culture is superior to another to claim a monopoly of knowledge and self sufficiency. In her opinion, the idea of learning from one another demonstrates and instills in the young learners the essence of interdependence.
In a Maa play and folk song, Leiser harangued girls from her Maa community and the other 42 tribes to rise up against retrogressive cultural practices like Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), teenage pregnancies and underage brides. Her day`s craft challenged girls in schools to focus on their education and realize their dreams.
Ken Maisiba, an anthropologist and a cultural critic, commended the initiative saying it should be emulated by all schools in the country in the bid to educate people in their formative years about various cultures around them.
He notes that this is critical in the quest for meaningful coexistence, integration and cohesion among various stripes of religious and cultural persuasions in society.
Henry Waitindi, an educationist and the Director of the Nakuru School, says the monthly co-curricular event seeks to nurture wholesome individuals in good morals and impart a sharp sense of neighborliness on the learners who he says are increasingly susceptible to the usually misguiding reality of pop culture is modern-day society.
Waitindi says the exercise under the auspices of the hidden curriculum, too, aims to create awareness about healthy eating and living among the young learners who he hopes will turn into ambassadors against unhealthy dieting and practices which are the major cause of the specter of lifestyle diseases in the country.
He is also banking on the movement to produce ambassadors of peace after school.
For Leiser, Ngemu, Bell and Nyokabi- the leading lights of the hidden agenda movement-the resolve among all participants is clear; that a mosaic of useful ideas creates a meaningful whole and he who abdicates his culture is lost.