Drums of Peace promotes African traditions, heritage

DRUMS of Peace (DoP) have embarked on S’bumbe S’combe, a project meant to inspire young girls to be familiar with their culture as well as promoting African traditions and heritage.

The project, run at Thabiso Youth Centre in Makokoba, Bulawayo, has 20 girls who are being taught how to mould houses from clay and decorate them using ash among others.

DoP founder Lewis Ndlovu told NewsDay Life & Style that they were running a number of programmes under the home-based programme to keep the girls off the streets.

“So far we have a project targeting mostly girls. The aim is to revive tour culture; promote African traditions and heritage. We are targeting young girls, especially those in urban areas to balance the rural traditional and city life,” he said.

Ndlovu said the programme would run for a month, each week having a different set of lessons.

“These cultural practices should be passed on to the next generation. The programme will run for a month and Peggy Masuku — one of the previous winners of My Beautiful Home project teaches them,” he said.

“I have done a project My Beautiful Home and I have seen a number of young girls with their mothers in rural areas doing house painting. I thought why not pass it on to these urban girls through the S’bumbe S’combe programme.”

Meanwhile, Ndlovu said the solar-powered borehole donated to the youth centre recently by the Turkish embassy and the Muslim community to ease water challenges would go a long way not only to benefit the Thabiso Youth Centre, but the Makokoba community at large.

“We have been facing serious water challenges, especially when we host children’s programmes such as Santa Comes to Makokoba and others,” he said.

“We would like to thank the sponsors and government for allowing them to come in with such a precious gift to us. We also thank the City of Bulawayo for allowing us to use this borehole,” he said.