Nama Choral Workshops

The Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport is presenting a Choral workshop in the Nama language at the Craggs on Saturday, 30 May 2009. This initiative forms part of the Department's drive to not only promote the three official languages of the Western Cape, but marginalized languages such as Nama.

The workshop is the first in a series of seven offered across the Western Cape and forms part of the third phase of an awareness campaign on the Nama language that started in 2000. Workshops will also be held in Kranshoek, Oudtshoorn, Great Brak River, Hawston, Mitchell's Plain and Vredendal respectively. The first two phases involved research done on Khoi and San languages and a basic introduction to the Nama language workshops.

The choral workshops are aimed at giving participants who had attended the basic introduction workshops material to practise what they had learned.

Thus far the process has seen the production of a basic introduction course consisting of a booklet and a CD to enable people to study at home and the staging of the first Nama mass choir festival held in Plettenberg Bay on 1 September 2007. In addition to this, Nama literacy books have been distributed to 20 libraries in the Western Cape enabling people who had mastered the basic introduction course to take their studies further free of charge.

Media are invited to attend as follows:
Date: 30 May 2009
Time: 09H00
Venue: Emmanuel Hall, Craggs