Promote Creative Writing as tool for Social Change

A quick reflection on African literature will show how stories and creative works have served as a platform for information. This information includes history, traditional mores, cultural practices and norms of social and political behavior. Great African literally artists like Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka , Francis Imbuga just to mention a few, have used various literally forms to convey information on numerous themes to present and future generations. Through his creative stories in Things fall apart, No longer at Ease, Arrow of God and other works , Achebe informs his Igbo society and the outside world of conflicting forces which have shaped contemporary Nigeria. This significant anthropological and sociological information is conveyed to the outside world via story medium with carefully selected characters, plots and settings documented in books. Accordingly, Writing for Social Change is based on the longstanding tradition of using literature as a tool for social critique, as a means of calling for social change and justice, and as a tool for social transformation. Where as in the past cultural values and tradition mores were passed on from generation to generation through stories told around fireplaces in the evenings, this option seem not to be possible given the dynamics of our life styles today. Apart from the ‘busy factor’ where parents hardly find time to interact with their children, the technological fall offs also make it hard for the children to interact with their parents to learn from them. As such, it’s not surprising in their free time our young children will be busy watching movies, playing video games to mention but a few. The biggest irony is that these movies are built on the culture values and traditions of the western world, which we embrace unconsciously at the expense of our own; as such our youngsters want to walk like Will Smith, to dress like Tiger Woods examples can go on and on! Given the above scenario and today’s realities where both parents and teachers have little time to teach morals and values to the young generation. There should be a deliberate policy by the government/Ministry of education to develop and promote Rwandan authors and promote a culture of reading. This would be in line with one of the aspirations of Ministry’s Education Sector policy, thus “ To inculcate in children and sensitize them to the importance of environment, hygiene and health and protection against HIV/AIDS ( Education sector policy, 2003) As such themes to write about should be selected carefully and information put in such books should be able to teach our children some of the social challenges that they meet today. For example in Rwanda our creative writing should focus on themes that help our children to promote unity and reconciliation, promotion of human rights, promotion of human rights, prevention of drug abuse, assertion of women’s rights, prevention of child mortality through immunization among other themes. Of course this is limited coverage when we consider the extent of problems we have in our society today. But again such challenges require the adoption of integrative strategies and using creative works/writing would be one of the most effective options especially for the school children. From the above arguments, there is a strong need for the government and civil society organizations to develop a deliberate policy to promote creative writing focused on specific themes like the ones cited above. Reading materials should be consciously generated to influence the character of our children today and the nature of adults they will be tomorrow. These works could be designed in such a way that readers will develop life and personal skills from reading such materials/books. Finally, creative writing will play a vital role in preserving and promoting our culture for posterity. Again since the ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth and culture have are charged with preserving our cultural mores and traditions should lead on this project of promoting creative writing. In my view creative writing is an effective way of preserving our culture and taking it to vision 2020, otherwise we shall leave it in the dustbin as a result of the generation gaps and in the end we shall be a lost people! Ends