Director of the Centre for the Study and Promotion of Cultural Sustainability at the University of Maiduguri, Prof. James Saliba says considering the neglect African cultures have suffered over the years, it is time Africans embrace and promote African cultures to the world.
Speaking to ATLFMNEWS at the 11th Biannual Workshop of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Graduate School-Performing Sustainability currently ongoing and expected to end on the 4th of March at the University of Cape Coast, Prof. Saliba noted that Africa is going through a lot of crisis hence, there is need to revive interest in the African culture.
He stressed, “We need to revive interest in our culture. Africa is going through a lot of cultural crises. We have conflicts all over the place. It will surprise you that we have many traditional mechanisms for resolving conflicts but we have not been utilizing them. So my message is the public must know that our cultures are rich”.
Prof. James Saliba believes that there is no contradiction between development and cultural sustainability in this industrialization processes as such the rich African culture can be integrated with the past practices to help enhance Africa’s modern development.
The Department of Music and Dance of the University of Cape Coast, University of Hildesheim of Germany and the University of Maiduguri in Nigeria are hosting the 11th Biannual Workshop of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Graduate School-Performing Sustainability which is a collaborative training network for Graduate Students from these three Universities.
Contributing to the discussion, academic associate for Arts Education at the Department of Cultural Policy, University of Hildesheim and coordinator of the Graduate School ‘Performing Sustainability, Dr. Meike Lettau said one of the goals of the conference is to explore some of the elements which could help resolve socio-conflicts in Ghana, Nigeria and globally.
The collaborative training network for Graduate Students initiative focuses on innovative research that brings together approaches from Performance, Arts, and Culture to bear on sustainable development as defined in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Source: Eric Sekyi/ATLFMNEWS
