"El Molo Community Video Dictionary" was inspired by the fact that the El Molo language was never written down. Instead, the El Molo community has been passing the local language on to future generations based on oral traditions, ecological knowledge and storytelling.
This participatory video shows members of the local community documenting their indigenous language and cultural practices to prevent cultural erosion in Northern Kenya overtime.
The last fluent speaker the El Molo language died in 1999, and it is now one of the most endangered languages in the world. Saving and preserving indigenous languages is crucial to ensure the protection of the cultural identity of the El Molo community. By considering the risks of potentially losing the local language through assimilation, the creation of the El Molo Video Dictionary shows the importance of safeguarding the traditional heritage of ethnic groups across Northern Kenya.
This film is part of the “Northern Kenya Indigenous Video Collective: NENO, The Message” playlist. This playlist features 11 participatory videos produced between 2016 and 2019 in a joint project between InsightShare, The Christensen Fund, The Kivulini Trust and The Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The project aimed to connect indigenous communities across Northern Kenya and provide them with skills and resources to document their way of life through participatory video.
These participatory videos filmed by the trainees themselves show events and practices that are important for the community, like cultural festivals and endangered ceremonies. They also used participatory video to tackle pressing challenges and find collective solutions.
Northern Kenya has until recently remain isolated from the rest of the country, but now it is seeing development moving in at a rapid pace. This modernisation is a serious threat to the ancient ways of living and the traditional value systems that a living culture is rooted in. Most ethnic groups in Northern Kenya still have a traditional lifestyle, and oral tradition is the way of passing forward traditional knowledge.
InsightShare’s Living Cultures initiative supports Indigenous Peoples to protect their territories, languages and cultures using Participatory Video. Living Cultures is a growing movement across Asia, Africa and the Americas uniting indigenous communities across borders; to celebrate, foster and protect their cultures with the principle of self-determination at its very heart.
Find out more about InsightShare’s Living Cultures initiative here: insightshare.org/network/
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