Education

KPN Winter Workshops 

2010-06-04 12:09:40

KPN Winter Workshops

It is a widely held view that there are very few San (Bushman) people left on this planet, that they have all gone, lost in the historical conflict between cattle owning others and colonial incursions. In fact there are around 90 000 people alive today who speak San languages. They have been marginalized both politically and geographically, but their communities are alive and kicking, and making valiant efforts to be part of contemporary life in the twenty-first century.

The particular focus of the Kalahari peoples Network (KPN) is to bring those communities and individuals into contact with each other electronically so that ideas, visions, problems and stories can be shared. KPN is part of a much larger organization, the Kalahari Peoples Fund (KPF) that was started over thirty years ago by Harvard anthropologists who have been working with grass roots development, human rights and land rights in southern Africa.

Our aim is to train and equip young people in each of the main San centres so that they can be in contact with each other and the rest of the world though the Internet and other forms of electronic communication.

Difficulties are, and will remain for the foreseeable future, issues of electric power and connectivity. When we started the website two years ago, we were well aware that we were doing so in advance of capacity. Power in some areas remains sporadic, as does the ability to connect on the Internet – but it is happening. And some communities do not have those difficulties and are raring to go. We have to keep moving with this project, to keep focused, to keep trying.

The website is not a static position in cyberspace but a highly interactive communication network featuring news and ideas as well as contemporary and traditional story and artwork, providing a forum for the discussion of issues, an archive for important records and acting as a newspaper and diary. Most importantly, it is becoming a place where San people can express themselves in their own words and with their own photographs instead of being represented by others.

KPN is giving a series of Winter Workshops in 2010 with a view to training the San people who will ultimately take over the network. We have held four workshops previously, in Windhoek, Tsumkwe, Platfontein and !Khwa ttu. All of these have involved enthusiastic young people who show great promise. It has been frustrating, on both sides, not to be able to follow up adequately with support, largely due to the shortage of working computers. This year we are initiating a major campaign to provide a dedicated computer in each of five centres, to provide distance back-up both technically and editorially and to train a minimum of five candidate deputy editor / managers and five people to assist them. It’s a big task and funding is minimal, but we are going to make it happen.

Anyone interested in learning more, or offering to help, can contact: editor@kalaharipeoples.net

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