Bana Ba Mmala Trust Cultural Workshop in the pipelines

Baba Ba Mmala Trust (BBMT) will on Friday 22 March 2019 host a Kitsong Cultural Workshop at the National Museum, ahead of the annual cultural event, Son of The Soil (SOTS). With this year’s SOTS running under the theme, “Kwa re go yang – Re Ipela” Bana Ba Mmala Trust will bring together cultural activists and thought leaders for an interactive engagement around cultural issues and topics including, Celebrating dirwe tsa Kgomo, Cultural song and dance, the raising of a Setswana child and interrogating Sekgatla Koma.
“Botswana’s unique heritage is something we should all cherish and celebrate. As Bana Ba Mmala we have a strong commitment to investing in our culture to ensure the protection of our shared heritage for generations to come, and it is with such workshops that we hope to achieve this,” said Kabelo Semele, Bana Ba Mmala Media Liaison.
BBMT is a Trust established by a group of Batswana to promote and preserve culture. SOTS slated for 1 March 2019 is an event through which patrons get to indulge in ethnic local cuisine, cultural activities, games, dance, song, crafts, and poetry to celebrate culture and our sense of pride as Batswana.
“I am particularly delighted to see that our strong Tswana connections are also reflected in activities such as Son of The Soil and Batswana have shown appreciation for such initiatives. We would therefore like to encourage Batswana to come and join us at the upcoming workshop, to listen to and share their stories of our culture that we are so proud of,” concluded Semele.
Son of the Soil cultural event was started in January 2005 in the village of Tlokweng. It was conceived and is organised by a group of youthful individuals known as Bana ba Mmala to relive, learn and enjoy Botswana culture. Bana ba Mmala is a non-profitmaking organisation and all the proceeds from the fundraising activities, including from Son of the Soil cultural festival are used for cultural research.
“We have in this regard funded research and packaging of Botswana culture into chewable chunks. Some of the research we have funded was the documenting of Setswana games (including modern ones), the documentation of old Setswana poetry, the packaging of tribal histories into three paragraph versions, the documentation of the Setswana attire and lastly the packaging of Botswana dances,” they said.