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Young people live out cultural heritage on their phones

Thursday March 12 2020
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A smartphone user. FILE PHOTO | NMG

By FRED OLUOCH

Millennials are unknowingly the living and organic purveyors of cultural heritage in their daily lives, even when they seem to be living their lives online. This was the topic at a recent two-day international cultural symposium at the Kenya National Museums in Nairobi.

The theme was Culture Grows: Between Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, and looked at how culture can drive economic growth.

Cultural experts and artists from Kenya, the UK, Uganda, Columbia and Vietnam discussed the roles that cultural heritage plays as a valuable contributor to economic growth, especially targeting the youth.

They keep culture alive by expressing themselves through new and evolving music, dance, art, dressing, hair style, make-up and accessories. These expressions are in turn monetised in commercial ventures that create employment.

“The programme demonstrated how cultural heritage is a driver of sustainable economic growth,” said Jill Coates, the British Council Kenya country director, the convenors of the event

They are also the organisers behind Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth—a recent two-year pilot programme which seeks to pioneer ways of creating inclusive and sustainable growth through the sharing and preservation of local cultural heritage.

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Joy Mboya, the executive director of the GoDown Arts Centre in Nairobi, and a keynote speaker at the event said the symposium helped to highlight the views of the many people who work hard to preserve cultural heritage nationally and internationally.

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