Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Harambe!

A friend who took around a group of teenage Kenyan girls, whom I met during their lunch in the park:

"One of the girls lost her money (about Rs.2000) at the museum, as her bag was open and with such a big crowd there, I am not surprised that it was stolen. She seemed quite dejected but wait! As soon as we got into the bus, Sr. Winifred said a magic word "Harambe!". Immediately, 100 rupee notes appeared and within a minute or two, funds were pooled together and the girl got her money back. I was amazed.

"What is Harambe?", I asked. Harambe is Swahili for "working together in unity" or "let's pull together". Following Kenya's independence in 1963, the first Prime Minister of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta adopted "Harambe" as a concept of pulling the country together to build a new nation. He encouraged communities to work together to raise funds for all sorts of local projects. This is still a strong and widely used concept in Kenya."

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