Media houses should support Kiswahili learning and speaking in the East African Community (EAC) so that the language can be commonly used by citizens, the EAC Deputy Secretary General in charge of the Infrastructure, Productive, Social, and Political Sectors has suggested.
Andrea Aguer Ariik Malueth made the appeal on July 5, while addressing a press conference on the 2nd EAC World Kiswahili Day celebrations held in Kampala, Uganda from July 5-7.
The EAC World Kiswahili Day is due on July 7.
Celebrations of World Kiswahili Day, he said, provide an incentive for the bloc to encourage young people to get rid of the perceptions of using a foreign language on the basis of being seen as intellectuals.
"I urge all the media houses in the region to help Partner States in promoting Kiswahili to our people by providing enough knowledge and removing all the negative attitudes towards Kiswahili as a language," Malueth said.
Malueth described Kiswahili as a language that carries African culture.
"Kiswahili as language enables us to express ourselves, showcase our culture to the rest of the world, carry our aspirations, and project our beauty as Africans," he observed.
"As the region, we have the responsibility to develop and spread Kiswahili as a way of promoting and enhancing our African culture," he said.
Uganda's First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for EAC Affairs, Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga, called upon Ugandans to learn and speak Kiswahili as part of efforts to promote regional integration and economic growth in the region.
Kadaga said that Kiswahili was a widely spoken language that could be utilised to unite not just East Africa but the entire African continent, adding that Ugandans should therefore embrace it as an African language.
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She indicated that Kiswahili had earned a bad reputation partly because it was used in pre-colonial times by slave traders from the East African Coast. She disclosed that currently, Kiswahili was still an optional subject, but it would in future be made a compulsory and examinable subject beginning with primary schools.
She said that plans were at an advanced stage to amend the EAC Treaty to operationalise the use of Kiswahili and French, following the adoption of the two languages as official languages of the Community by the 21st Ordinary Meeting of the Summit of EAC Heads of State in February 2021.
In her remarks, the Executive Secretary of the East African Kiswahili Commission (EAKC), Caroline Asiimwe, said that the EAC Treaty recognises Kiswahili as the lingua franca for the region, adding that the status of Kiswahili has since been elevated after it was adopted by the Summit as one of the official languages of the Community in addition to English and French.
Asiimwe urged Ugandans to change their negative attitudes towards Kiswahili, adding that mastery of the language would open up immense opportunities in trade, media, criminal justice system and healthcare, among other sectors.
The EAC comprises seven Partner States - Burundi, DR Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
The region is home to about 300 million people, according to data from the EAC Secretariat.
