Helping Yoruba Parents Abroad Avoid Losing Their Kids To Western Culture

People from many parts of Africa have been coming to America for quite some time for leisure, business, and education. Through many of those years, cultural identity was not an issue because the African communities were transitory. Many people did not even come with their families. Many Africans did not want to live far away from home for long. This mind-set is reflected in a Yoruba proverb that says, "Ajo ko le dundun, ki onile ma re'le," "No matter how pleasant and enjoyable your sojourn abroad has been, you must return home." But in the last couple of decades, more and more Yoruba people have been migrating permanently to the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and the rest of the world.

Due to unbearable economic and political conditions in their home countries, they have been making their homes and raising their families in western world. The feeling these days is expressed in this Yoruba saying that contrasts sharply to the earlier one: "Ibi ti aiye ba ba'ni, ni a ti nje," "Home is wherever you find life in abundance." Immigrants settling in America, Canada, Europe, Asia and the other parts of the world have had to deal with a sense of cultural dislocation, as a result of being immersed in a varied and very different cultural milieu. Yoruba descendants express a common passion for passing on their language & culture to their children, for the sake of posterity and to give their children a deep sense of identity and high level of self esteem. Obvious in all these efforts is that Yoruba people are striving to provide their younger generation with cultural roots that will hold them firmly, help them grow, and give them a sense of identity, which many believe has helped them cope with the difficult transition to life in America and other parts of the world.

Yoruba people believe in strong family and cultural ties. This belief provides the hope and the expectation of returning home. Yoruba people want their children or foreign spouse to be able to fit into their Yoruba community when they return home. Hence, they have the desire to teach them about their culture, especially those aspects that have to do with the etiquette of respect for elders, eating in public, greetings, mannerism and dress code. A person's language constitute a big part of their identity.

Language is a tool of communication, and not segmentation If you have no language, you have no culture, "Preserving Your Heritage Language is the key to preserving your next generation, giving your child a true sense of identity and a high level of self esteem." -- Soji Oyenuga, 2006 We as Yoruba people believe that by teaching our children our culture we will one day go back to our fatherland triumphantly. Yoruba parents abroad are very busy and industrious people.

They continually faces the challenges of creating the time and knowing the technique to help teach their kids to understand, speak, read and appreciate Yoruba language and culture. Yoruba parents abroad urgently need to "rescue" their next generation from being lost due to lack of language and cultural transfer. They need external help to achieve this lofty goal. They need to have an interactive and entertaining educational multimedia that will teach their Kids Yoruba language and culture in the "context" of what their kids are used to in this western world.

Copyright (c) 2007 Gaptel innovative Solutions Inc.

Soji Oyenuga and Titi Oyenuga are successful Yoruba parents living abroad. They are the originator of the famous, easy, fun and highly interactive and entertaining software/ebook - Yoruba For Kids Abroad - Learn Yoruba In 27 days. Click http://www.YorubaForKidsAbroad.com