Hey Edmonton, what can you learn this year?
Maybe you weren’t planning to learn a Namibian language this year but the Edmonton Public Library wants you to give it some thought.
And if not a new language, how about learning how to weld? Or juggle? Or play a ukulele?
It’s all part of the #3SkillsYEG campaign which encourages people to learn three new things in 2016.
The campaign is part of a broader City of Learners initiative that puts an emphasis on learning, both formal and informal, in Edmonton.
Nelson Nagenda was on hand Thursday morning to teach visitors to the Stanley A. Milner Library how to speak Damara/ Nama, a language spoken in his home of Namibia.
“It’s pretty hard (to learn) but it’s fun,” he said.
Nagenda speaks four Namibian languages and fluent English.
“I chose the one I’m more comfortable with and the one that’s more interesting, with all the clicks,” said Nagenda, who is on an exchange program with the Kokopelli Choir.
“I think it’s really cool to learn something new, if you can. I think it makes society better if you are learning from one another, and for your own personal growth.”
In the course of the choir exchange, Nagenda said he has taught Namibian songs to the choir and learned new ones.
The three skills initiative was inspired by Stephen Robinson, a University of Alberta student who resolved to learn a new skill every week, and has kept it up for more than a year. Robinson’s adventures ranged from barrel-rolling a plane and making an axe in a forge, to simply being nicer to his roommates.
This kind of learning is important “to the vibrancy of our community,” said Mayor Don Iveson, who spoke at the event.
The mayor said he hoped to learn how to use one of the library’s 3-D printers to “make a basic blob,” learn a little bit more of the Cree language and he said he would “see about meditation,” which the mayor seemed a little wary of.
“It doesn’t say master three things,” he said.