Indigenous Knowledge Traditions:Talk by Wangoola Wangoola Ndawula

Wangoola Wangoola Ndawula, an avid learner and scholar of indigenous knowledge preservations in Africa, held a series of meetings and mobilization of like-minded people in Uganda and other African countries in the early 1980s to  discuss and develop the first ever Indigenous African Multiversity.  The Mpambo Afrikan Multiversity is located in the Kingdom of Busoga in Uganda, near the town of Jinja. Jinja lies at the location where the Nile river begins its flow north from Lake Victoria. Mpambo Afrikan Multiversity is a space for higher education research that focuses on the recovery and revitalisation of African traditional Indigenous knowledge. Mpambo believes that Africa and its people will not achieve their full potential until they are able to recover and strengthen their African intellectual roots, and thus be able to bring the ancient knowledge and wisdom of the African people to the global knowledge pool available to make our planet better. 

Wangoola Wangoola Ndawula started his talk with the importance of land/nature -- Mother Earth! It is not only a living source but also one of sustenance. Knowledge, he said, is production, reproduction, dreams, language and culture. Man-made laws are valid if they are in alignment with nature and culture.  For communities to live in harmony, they have to live by the laws of nature.

Language is where knowledge is stored. Which is why the Mother tongue should be the medium of education from kindergarten to post-doctoral level. 

Wangoola urged the need of Africa's culture to be freed from the shackles of colonialism, the Bible and Quran. In today’s world, Africa is a Key to the Future together with other spiritual nations. Peace is the seed of Africans; they have planted it in resonance with nature. The time has come back to go back to the start -- the confluence of the Nile where civilisation began. Africa should hold high its own Indigenous culture in front of the world.  This will be possible, said Wangoola, when you open doors to all learning in all languages and cultures. We need to render colonial universities obsolete and their graduates illiterate! 

Watch the full talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-mi3nKSdb4