THE wisdom of Africa suggests: “Every time an elder dies, we lose a library”. Recognising this ancestral truth, the Island Stewards Camp and Spelman College participated in a joint oral history project to document the personal histories of eight women of wisdom in the Bahamas.
Over the course of four days, starting on March 15, 2012, seven young Bahamians, stewards from the annual Island Stewards Camp, and six Spelman scholars, accompanied by project facilitators, recorded vital history from elder women, while building cross-border relationships.
The Spelman Independent Scholars (SIS) are participants in a two-semester, interdisciplinary learning experience at the historically black women’s college in Georgia, USA. The SIS oral history component aims to collect life stories of women in the African diaspora.
Describing the project in a concept paper, Spelman scholar Danielle Phillips referred to the honoured and revered place older women assumed in traditional communities, as griots and sages, seers and prophets.
“Their stories teach us about the values and beliefs that shaped their reality and in immeasurable ways, they impact our own. For this reason then, we see their memories, anchored deep in the soil of wisdom, as cherished treasure. It is this truth, as old as time itself, that undergirds the SIS Oral History Project,” said Ms Phillips.
For its 15th anniversary, the SIS project crossed borders to the Bahamas. It partnered with the Island Stewards Camp, which is a Family Island immersion programme for adolescent youth in Over-the-Hill communities of New Providence organised by the Indaba Project and the Bahamas Sportsfishing and Conservation Association (BSCA).
Participating stewards travel to a different family island each summer for experiential learning and cultural engagement. The upcoming camp is planned for Cat Island in July.