Leading With Values.
The work of adé PROJECT embodies the seven core principles of Kwanzaa (Nguzo Saba). While for many this is just an annual holiday (December 26-January 1), we recognize that our ancestors and elders practiced these values as a way of life year round. We commit to the same.
Umoja: Unity | To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
Kujichagulia: Self-Determination | To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
Ujima: Collective Work and Responsibility | To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and solve them together.
Ujamaa: Cooperative Economics | To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Nia: Purpose | To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Kuumba: Creativity | To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Imani: Faith | To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
Kwanzaa as an Annual Celebration.
As most people know it, Kwanzaa is a holiday celebrated from December 26th – January 1st. In our world, Kwanzaa is a year-round guidepost on how we should be working with and alongside our community…and it’s much more than a holiday. The concept of Kwanzaa was originally created in 1966, founded in collaboration with others, and coined by Dr. Maulana Karenga as a response to decades of work on Africana studies. Dr. Karenga researched African harvest celebrations and combined aspects of several different celebrations, such as those of the Ashanti and those of the Zulu, to form the foundation of Kwanzaa. The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means first fruits, or harvest, in Swahili. Celebrations often include singing and dancing, storytelling, poetry reading, African drumming, and feasting.
Kwanzaa, a Swahili word derived from the expression, “first fruits,” marks a time on the calendar in which African and African American history and culture is celebrated. Coined by Dr. Maulana Karenga in the late 60’s, the intention of the annual celebration is to offer an alternative to over commercialized holiday habits to instead share core values intrinsic to African traditions carried over to America on slave ships. The holiday is relatively new, compared to other holidays celebrated in the United States of America, and involves celebrating a different principle every day for seven days with the burning of candles, exchanging of hand-made gifts and participation of a variety of activities of a spiritual nature.
Dr. Maulana Karenga is a professor and chairman of Africana Studies at California State University. He moved from inspired action to coin the holiday in response to the Watts Riots in Los Angeles in 1965 as a way to bring African-Americans together as a community. For more info, visit – https://www.interexchange.org/articles/career-training-usa/history-principles-and-symbols-of-kwanzaa .