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Maheta Kuhleva Group from South Africa is one group that took culture as a professional trade

Mutare Bureau
CULTURE has been identified as a key tool for community development in the Great Limpopo Region which incorporates Manicaland Province.

This was witnessed at the just-ended fifth edition of Southern Africa’s most popular cultural tourism fair, The Great Limpopo Cultural Trade Fair which took place last weekend at Boli Muhlanguleni Showgrounds about 110km south of Chiredzi town.

Celebrated under the theme: “The value of culture in food security and sustainable livelihoods,” the gala gave a platform for Tsonga (Shangaan) and Ndau communities from Chipinge, Chimanimani and Buhera districts to showcase their culture.

The main attraction was Maheta Kuhleva Group of South Africa which has transformed from a community to a professional cultural group.

A business symposium was held at Ciwini Cultural Village at Boli Muhlanguleni where communities received technical information on how culture can be synchronised with modern farming techniques and education to secure food and improve livelihoods.

Zimbabwe Sugar Association Experiment Station and Curriculum Development Unit led the discussions.

Minister of Rural Development, Promotion and Preservation of National Culture and Heritage, Cde Abednico Ncube, who was represented by Secretary in the Ministry, Dr George Magosvongwe, urged communities to embrace the new education curriculum which promotes national culture and heritage studies.

Cde Ncube said: “Culture determines the food we eat and the animals we keep. Food security is something that has always been the target of our communities. Never at any time did they fail to find alternative means to provide food on the table like what is happening these years.

“Let us give our people more space to initiate and let us support traditional crops and animal varieties that have proved their resilience over the years through adaptation to climatic changes and other extremes.

“We are speaking with the same language as the Southern African region about our cultural heritage and this multicultural centre is set to be a regional hub that will pioneer the revival, promotion and preservation of this heritage.

“We commit ourselves to standing up for our own identity without faltering. As we dig deep in our socio-economic reserve at this time of global economic ailment, it is the rural economy that has become our last line of defence and hence our first line in the African renaissance offensive. We refuse to lose the endowments given to us by our ancestors let alone allow that knowledge to die,” he concluded.