State ready to train scribes in Intangible Cultural Heritage - Luo

….. no witchcraft programme at UNZA

GOVERNMENT is ready to facilitate bursaries for journalists who wish to study Intangible Cultural Heritage degree programme to be offered at the University of Zambia (UNZA) for them to report from a position of knowledge, Higher Education Minister Professor Nkandu Luo said in Lusaka yesterday.

Prof. Luo said that UNZA, in collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), would not offer a degree programme in witchcraft as widely believed but rather a course in cultural heritage.

Delivering a ministerial statement in Parliament yesterday, Prof. Luo said Zambia had a rich cultural heritage such as fiGule Wa Mukulu and fiMakishi Dance” which had been inscribed on the UNESCO safeguarding list in 2006.

She said traditional ceremonies such as Kuomboka, Umutomboko, Ncwala, Ukusefya Pa Ng™wena and Likumbi Lya Mize were full of exciting arrays of intangible cultural heritage expressed in dances, songs and other performances.

She said it was worrisome that some people in the past few weeks had a field day on social media to insinuate and misrepresent such rich cultural heritage as witchcraft.

fiIn addition, my Ministry and through it, the University of Zambia is cognizant of the fact that witchcraft is a crime in Zambia as outlined in Chapter 90 of the Laws of Zambia (the Witchcraft Act).