GENERAL USE
$25.00 – $1,000.00Thank you for this general gift that allows us to use this as most urgently needed.
Due to colonial and post-independence attitudes, under-appreciation for local culture is sadly familiar. We are reversing that view by prominently displaying and educating on the rich Makonde, Makua, and Yao heritage. Seeing elders beaming with pride when they share their stories about the artifacts they find displayed. It is not uncommon to hear people say, “I didn’t think our culture was worth preserving. I must go home and tell people to stop throwing our elders things away.”
With no funding for classroom visual aids the MaKuYa Museum provides artifacts, maps, activities, and games to enhance learning for students and all visitors. Unlike most classrooms, we are all about engagement, asking questions and being asked questions. if we don’t know the answer, we try to find out
Formal education for young people has separated them from the stories and histories of their grandparents and culture. Most of their elders’ memories remain undocumented. We invite elders to share with the youth, and aspire to record their histories and memories before it is too late.
For these reasons and more we are seeking support to keep our efforts going.
We have a large collection of artifacts representing the various aspects of life at home or in the community. These items play a part in dress, cooking, farming, hunting, fishing as well as births, marriages and death.
Music, dance, games and entertainment play a big roll in the traditional Makonde and Makua lives. We have a growing collection of games and instruments for our visitors to see, hear and even play.
With the help of village elders we have amassed a collection of native foods, herbs and seeds found in the region. As well we explain through a “Yalitoka wapi?” “Where did it come from?” challenge to understand the introduction of non-native foods to Africa.
The Makonde people have a long tradition of carving, initially for the production of masks for performance. Contemporary carving grew from the wishes of foreign visitors which began centuries ago with Arabs and Portuguese using ivory and African Blackwood. These include a variety of figures, statues and useful objects.
Images taken from a 1908 expedition through the Mtwara region provide an invaluable opportunity for younger Tanzanians to see the famed traditions of face scaring, teeth filing, and lip piercing in the Mtwara region. Memories of these traditions are still represented in dance and art forms.
In the Discovery Center we explore things connected to local and familiar realities: Reading maps, understanding natural phenomenon such as the moon, sun or a rainbow, the earth rotation, sea life and more.
The MaKuYa Traditional Culture and Performing Arts Festival was launched by ADEA in 2008 for the preservation, promotion, and perpetuation of the traditional performing arts in the Mtwara region of Tanzania.ADEA produced this event in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2014
As the peoples of southeastern Tanzania did not traditionally keep cattle; hunting, trapping and fishing were an essential part of their lives. Fishermen in the coastal regions made traps and ….).
The use of audio devises has made our exhibits more accessible to a largely functionally-illiterate population. . GUIDE-ID of the Netherlands has generously agreed to let us continue to use their audio equipment without charge.
Thank you for this general gift that allows us to use this as most urgently needed.
ADEA continues to support the Maasai Boma School in Esukuta, Kenya. ADEA help found the school in 2008 with it’s first kindergarten class of 20 students. It now has 350 student from Kindergarten to form eight. ADEA has committed to minimally support the head teacher who leads a team of seven teachers. Please consider helping us to meet this cost for a month or two (or more).
Do you have maps, posters, models, games, books, microscopes or anything else that would inspire discovery of nature, science, history, geography, etc. We would be happy to receive them in our museum to enhance our Discovery Center.
Please mail items to: ADEA – P.O. Box 410 – Mtwara, Tanzania
If you would like a tax-deduction for the items and shipping please send an email to [email protected] stating what you have sent, its value, and the shipping, and I’ll send you a letter from ADEA for your tax purposes.
In a corner of Tanzania where languages are not written and oral traditions the norm, it is the accounts and stories of the elders that provide the context and histories of the items in our collections. Eager to share, elders are exposing the seeming simple, but in reality richly diverse history of the region related to customs, historic events, music, daily life, marriage, birth, death, gender roles and practices, and much more. As the older generation is passing away such interviews (and their recording and transcription) is invaluable and even crucial.
Our curatorial team wages, utilities, maintenance, stationary needs, and minor improvements and acquisitions costs are required to keep things running well in our museum. Your support through this gift allows us to keep the museum running and open for the public.
Without a building we can do nothing. If you can’t afford a whole month, then half a month will help greatly.
Rent for our building is a mere $97 a month, but without it we can do nothing. Please “Buy” a month or a few to help keep the foundation of our museum in the community.
An increasing number of classes and school groups are requesting to come to our museum. Accepting their requests means the cost of hiring additional curators, printed material, small snacks, and other logistical items. Your contribution will allow us to facilitate and improve programs for a larger number visiting primary and secondary school groups.