Hello ICT, hello African folktales

Raising a couch-potato is probably every parent’s nightmare. Unfortunately, the development and affordability of digital satellite television, video and computer games, means that raising potatoe-couches who escape into virtual societies by watching TV or playing computer games for hours on end is a reality most working class parents in Africa have to live with.

The African child of the 21st Century may never know the joy of playing with mud dolls or making wire cars but they can learn African stories and songs of old. Stories such as Mebelo and Lebelo[An adaptation of the pied piper], Kalulu [Hare]and Hyena, Mikalange and the Ghost, stories, now nearly forgotten, passed on from generations and generations before, stored through word of mouth. This is why the National Library Service (NLS) in Malawi has established a National Folktale Resource Centre within the Library which will preserve traditional forms of folktales including legends, myths, and fables in digital form with the aim of making them freely available to all.

According to the NLS website much of the work encompasses the identification, collection and storage of folktales from a rapidly diminishing pool of traditional intellectuals: elders, clan heads, priests, historians and story tellers. The project is funded by Malawi National Commission for UNESCO and the Global Future Charitable Trust (GFCT), provides audio-visual recording equipment and technical training for Malawian engineers states the website. Trully, modern technology needs not to drive us away from our roots. Instead Africa can use innovations in ICT to embrace culture and reinforce positive societal norms such as respecting elders and sharing.

Globally, there has been an awakening to the importance of preserving folklore. Now more than ever Hollywood is cashing in on creatively re-told folklore such as Little Red Riding Hood, Star Wars, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella and many more.Maybe someday popular folktales like Kalulu and Mikalange might make it to the Box Office but even if these age-old tales do not become Hollywood hits, these folktales are ours and ours to keep and share with our children and our children’s children.