Maneno Ya Kuwezesha comes from the Swahili language, an African language spoken in more than 12 nations on the African continent. Maneno Ya Kuwezesha means “words that empower”, a phrase that has inspired not only the African Literature Laboratory, but also our strategy of black narratives that is our commitment to the change of referents, imaginary, and stories that are told about the Pacific and the African diaspora in Colombia and the world.
This laboratory is the first implementation of a strategy that aims to promote reading and writing as an empowerment tool for the populations of the Pacific Coast, we introduce leaders of the Colombian Pacific in the best texts and authors in the African literary sphere, through the accompaniment of experts in this field.
With a selection of poems, songbooks, short stories, excerpts from autobiographies, and novels, the author delves with the participants on the relationship between reality / fiction/ Africa / Pacific /ethics / art /me / and us which are all fundamental to understanding literary creation as a vehicle of knowledge, customs, ideologies, subjectivities, and individual and collective liberation. In this way, participants will enrich not only their ideas about Africa, with its ambiguity and ambivalence, but also develop an interest in literary reading and writing.
Likewise, this is the starting point of a broader literary proposal which intends for the population of the Pacific to integrate into the country's written culture through the construction and strengthening of a book ecosystem in the region and the development of the reading and writing skills and abilities of coastal residents. Hence, it seeks to elevate reading and written production to the same level as other consolidated, recognized and highly valued artistic manifestations that predominate in the region.