Emancipation key for African descendants

So said Khafra Kambon, chairman of the Emancipation Support Committee at the Yoruba Village Drum Festival at the Yoruba Village in Port-of-Spain yesterday.

Speaking to Sunday Newsday, Kambon said the celebration was psychologically important to African descendants, and it had made an impact on their everyday lives.

“All those things in your environment – whether it’s your built environment, the things you hear, the things you see – all that has an affect on your mind and how you see yourself, which is critical to the development of any people. A lot of things can contribute to your sense of self so wherever you can make an input in the things that can affect the mindset of Africans, affect our sense of self, it is very important.” For example, he said when he was younger, Nigerians would wear their African clothes and they would be laughed at because if it. Now, thousands of people wear their African clothes proudly on Emancipation Day and special occasions. Also, he said black women began to be proud of their natural hair and dark complexions in the 1970s and “what has been sustained has been sustained a lot by the Emancipation festival.” Kambon said the Emancipation Support Committee also got involved in the formal education system by hosting and providing literature for an African history quiz in secondary schools and a spoken word competition in primary schools. He said when the children learned the contributions past and current people of African decent made to the world, they were surprised and encouraged to do more themselves.

Therefore, he said, such information needed to be part of the curriculum but did not expect that to be the case anytime soon.

“I would be pleasantly surprised if there is a radical change in how the curriculum addresses information that affects how we think about ourselves as a people so we have to do, in our small ways, what we can.” MP for Laventille East/Morvant Adrian Leonce said the Yoruba Village Drum Festival was a way to “promote a level of consciousness” for people of the area to develop themselves as he felt that consciousness was dwindling.

“I think the reasons people gravitate to things that may be negative and have a negative impact on the community is because they do not have a proper understanding of what the community is about and where it came from. I think that knowledge, and developing that strength inside, would not allow some of the weaknesses that make them gravitate to negativity.” Noting the Yoruba Village once encompassed parts of Port of Spain including Laventille and Belmont, Leonce said more people needed to support and contribute to the Yoruba Village Drum Festival. He said that contribution could include just listening to and understanding the history of the Yoruba Village, or through the giving of resources like time, experience or money.