03-01-06

Study Group on Kenya

From March 6, 2006 a group of teachers from Ithaca city School district will be meeting monthly with Ambassador Jalang’o to cover following topics:

  1. Importance of studying Kenya including the significance of the National flag and Kenya’s National anthem
  2. geography and  brief history (1450 to date)
  3. Cultures, traditions and customs of some Kenyan communities like the Maasai, Kikuyu, Samburu, Luo and Swahili, etc.
  4. comparison of rural and urban life
  5. Challenges facing Kenyan girls and women and actions taken by the Government and NGOs to address the issues
  6. Effects of urbanization, Christianity and onset of HIV/AIDS on traditions
  7. Commence Swahili language lessons, lingua franca of East Africa

After each session, Ambassador Jalang’o will meet for half hour with those teachers interested in traveling to Kenya with students to draw up plans for fundraising and other travel arrangements.

Importance of studying Kenya

Excavations in Kenya suggest that the region is the cradle of humanity, the home some 3.25 million years ago of Homo habilis, from whom Homo sapiens descended. What is certain is that, in more recent times, Kenya was the settling place of a huge number of tribes from all over Africa, with a long history of migration, settlement and conflict. During the following centuries, the region became prosperous on the profits of trade, and also as an entrepôt for commerce from the Indian Ocean. The Portuguese arrived in the early 16th century, and having wrested control of the area’s trade from the Arabs, absorbed Kenya into their commercial empire.

About 2.5 million years ago Homo habilis lived in the rich fertile rift valley. By 50,000 BC Homo erectus had emerged and Stone Age cultures spread over this area. The forefathers of Homo sapiens became hunter gatherers. Cushitic- speaking agro-pastoral people from the north, Ethiopia, and pastoral Nolites followed from the Nile valley moved across during 3000 to 1500 BC.

  • One of the first upright walking humans, inhabited present day Lake Turkana in Kenya. Skeleton remains found in 1998-1999 are kept by National Museums of Kenya.
  • Early civilization in East Africa is to be found on Kenyan and other East African coasts
  • Modern Kenya is known worldwide for its major agricultural and floriculture exports; tourist safaris; world class athletes; home to indigenous Africans like the Maasai, etc.

Download the full article here.