Abstract
Education for promoting ethnic and social cohesion can be challenging in a multicultural country like Kenya, where strong traditional beliefs and practices form the core of an individual culture's social norms. One such practice is Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a traditional initiation rite of passage for girls that the Kenya Government outlawed in 2011. Despite its illegality, some rural communities still practice it as part of their emphasis on traditional education. Community-based programs through various non-profit organizations have tried to root out the practice. However, in some communities in the North Rift Region of Kenya, the progress has been a hop and a step, but sometimes there has been no jump. As part of ongoing research that began in December 2020, this paper presents findings from studying the Tugen people, a subgroup of the Kalenjin, who occupy the Baringo County of Kenya. The findings show that even though some Tugen girls still undergo FGM, the most robust programs put in place by the non-profit groups focus on art, craft, and music as alternatives to the traditional initiation rites. Such programs have made significant contributions to reducing the number of girls undergoing FGM in the Tugen community and thereby improving their access to formal education.
Author Information
David Nyaberi, Lincoln University of Missouri, United States
Naomi Chemursoi, Egerton University, Kenya
Paper Information
Conference: BAMC2024
Stream: Education / Pedagogy
This paper is part of the BAMC2024 Conference Proceedings (View)
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To cite this article:
Nyaberi D., & Chemursoi N. (2025) Hop, Step, and Jump: The Art, Craft, and Music of Transforming Traditional Education in the North Rift Region of Kenya ISSN: 2435-9475 – The Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media & Culture 2024: Official Conference Proceedings (pp. 139-147) https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-9475.2024.14
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.22492/issn.2435-9475.2024.14
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