Donna Pido

My paternal kukhu as grandmothers are called in Luhya language, was a dynamic matriarch, feared and loved by her ten children and adored by us her numerous grandchildren. To date I still recall as a child of 6 years of age my kukhu treat our deep cuts bleeding wounds with green liquid squeezed out of plucked fluffy green leaves from short shrubs. The wound would heal leaving no scar. When we had upset stomachs, she would give us a liquid from boiled tree bark to drink. My kukhu did not know how to read and write, but that knowledge was handed down to her from her mother, grandmother and through generations. "Indigenous groups conceive education as learning for life experience, which is not confined to a fixed school curriculum" (Kanstrup-Jensen, 2006). Indigenous knowledge, in many instances, is also referred to as traditional and or local knowledge (Kothari 2007). What happened to this and other health-related indigenous knowledge may never be fully explained. Yet here we are now in the 21st century griped in fear, anxiety, and despair of increasing infection and untold death due coronavirus a global pandemic. Africa with a tremendous history of indigenous knowledge in traditional medicine is now left at the mercy of the Western developed nations begging for commercial drugs, vaccines and medical equipment. Where western science has failed to arrest the rollercoaster of human destruction and death and the so called first world nations are caught in spirit of desperation to save themselves. Various research reports inform that the West did not only pay attention to indigenous knowledge but ridiculed it as primitive and backward. In 1980 is when indigenous knowledge emerged and it was regarded as an effort by the development workers in engaging with traditional communities (Manyozo, 2018). One wonders whether the efforts made by the west were purely selfish to support their development agenda and increase dependency of these local African, Asian and Latin American communities with rich traditional knowledge on the West. Resilience of indigenous knowledge has continued to prevail in some communities on the African continent; examples include in the Maasai in Kenya, Karamajong in Uganda, Hausa in Nigeria and Gado in Bukina Faso, where the use of indigenous medicine continues to prevail. This article attempts to discuss health-related indigenous knowledge since doing so helps to indicate that its time Africa plays a bigger role in responding global issues such as Covid19.

The three authors felt challenged to make a case for addressing perceived Brain Drain and Brain Gain by mobilizing social scientific and design methodologies and paradigms. Our exploration resulted in our proposal that KNAS consider the importance and usefulness of these two approaches to mitigate the 'scientific mystique' and to begin addressing issues of intellectual assets and deficiencies using a range of conceptual models that can be diagrammed and/or pictured thus providing greater ideational clarity.

The apparent conflict between local knowledge and pedagogies and their international/exotic/ global counterparts has been negated in recent decades by the widespread collection and dissemination of information along with the challenges presented by HV/AIDS. .While foreign communities have refused to acknowledge local knowledge there has been a parallel failure/ refusal to modify indigenous systems of education and training to keep pace with changing times, a problem that has faced many nation states. A stunning example is the immediate and far reaching ripple effects of the process of initiation that, while once excellent, has led Kenyans into an intellectual setting that exacts an exceptionally high cost upon the nation state and all its peoples. Two case studies of research and interventions, from Kisii (Okwaroka) and the Maasai ceremonial cycle will be described briefly to illustrate possibilities for positive integration of indigenous and exotic systems including literacy and oral transmission.

Indigenous design and belief systems in East Africa have not been well studied.  neither have they been applied in design practice or policy formulation.  Author describes the pervasive Maasai pattern of alternating symmetry and the Turkana use of quadric solids in their material culture.  widespread East African understandings of color and pattern were tested and applied in the design of an AIDS education campaign

Hyperboloids in one and two sheets and hyperbolic paraboloids pervade Turkana art and material culture.  The forms, with variations, as solids and elevations serve both practical and decorative purposes.  Their use in a resource poor, harsh environment serves to minimize material while maximizing distal surface and stress distribution.

Research findings  on East African color and pattern symbolism, were applied in the development of educational materials related to AIDS and STIs.  These findings were validated in repeated pre-test and ancillary research exercises to determine acceptability and understanding of sample segments in Kenya.

Field researchers used a pre-determined methodology to investigate delays in getting women in labor to skilled care facilities.  The methodology limited field workers' ability to pursue lines of inquiry based on unanticipated data.  Exremely i9mportant findings could not be incorporated into the intervention strategy because of this.

Authoritative messages regarding social and sexual behaviour are delivered through the  initiation process in Eastern Africa.  Field research, materials development and training were conducted between 1998 and the circumcision season of December, 1999 in Kisii, Kenya.  community reception of updated messages in light of the AIDS epidemic was strong and positive.  The model stands as highly effective even though the introduction of affordable ARVs began about one and a half years later.

Continental African art, Indian Ocean Rim art and European art contribute to the 20th century fusion that has given rise sto art in Kenya today. The influx of new ideas and materials as well as exposure to global trends in art have influenced the present art scene.

Drawing on participant observation, extensive reading, professional practice and teaching experience over nearly 48 years, we support our conclusions with citations, where they exist, and with well remembered anecdotal accounts that exemplify repeated experience.  Huge pictures are better seen when painted with a broad brush.  We submit that all stakeholders in the design field have fallen short of establishing appropriate links among academia, government, the international community, designers and communities in Kenyan society.  If design, which permeates and pervades all aspects of life, can be considered metaphorically as a ball, everyone has dropped that ball.

This paper is an attempt to identify and make sense of the role of ‘indigenous’ design in the real world of today’s Kenya.  Data, analysis, conclusions and, most of all, insights are based on nearly half a century of participant observation in East African life, extensive reading, structured and unstructured research along with personal and professional collaboration in a wide range of pursuits with social and hard scientists, students, colleagues and officialdom.  The author concludes that all parties have been seeing the interplay of design forces and modes in too simplistic a manner and that it is time for all concerned to document, explore and elucidate the richness and complexity of our entire design history while taking our basic humanity into account.  Key words:  design history, opportunism, innovation

In Africa, are burdened with the history of philosophy as the intellectual work of single individuals and small groups of brilliant people who wrote down their ideas (except Socrates).  East Africans lack the need to ID  outstanding thinkers and to thank them or place them in sycophantic elevation above their peers. Over centuries, Maasai developed a philosophical system, enshrined in their religion, action and practice. It is  system of resilience and required change that has enabled their survival for at least 300 years of the  recorded oral history male agesets.

Using the classification of fantasies articulated by Prof Francis LK Hsu in the early 1960s, the authors explore their interpersonal, cultural and professional understandings of dreams as involuntary fantasy along with their interconnectedness with other types of fantasy.

This paper is about the interaction of esthetic systems seen through the integration of heraldic traditions and the rich, but not always pleasant, history that accompanies that process. Let us begin with a brief history of heraldry in the British Isles as it forms the basis of present heraldry throughout the British Commonwealth, of which Kenya is a member. The English term 'heraldry' is derived from 'herald', meaning the person who announces the presence or arrival of a leader or other person of great importance. The word has oter meanings connected to announcement but this is the one most relevant to the present inquiry.(WikiPedia. Heraldry) Over many centuries, it came to mean the complex system of symbols and their arrangements that designate a person, family, institution, corporation or nation in the form that began in Europe in the 1100s CE. The main form of heraldic device in the European systems is the Coat of Arms. (Wikipedia. Coat of Arms) Others are the badge, seal and flag of any of the above mentioned entities (see appendix). Within the Anglophone world there has been an all too

Social Design has a dark history in East Africa because of its unnamed use in subjugating, and manipulating unsuspecting peoples for over a century. Terms like 'civilization' and 'modernization' were often used to mask intensive 'social control' and 'social engineering.' The study of Design as an academic discipline began at the end of the 1960s, on the misunderstanding that Design is part of Art, which may explain why many subfields of Design have gone unrecognized. To many design educators the notion that their work should be influenced, if not driven by social research and insights gained from the target populations remains strange. The authors now shed light on Social Design, a subfield of Design that has tentacles in many other fields including Social Marketing, Advertising, Public Health, Urban and Rural Planning, Architecture, Green Design and Social Innovation Design. The unclear, diverse and contradictory views of Design sometimes muddle understanding of Social Design and complicate its integration into tertiary Design Education. An online survey of African and other Universities reveals great variation in definitions of design and very little attention to Social Design as a subfield. The authors bring together experience, literature, observation and experimentation in elucidating the status and trajectory of Social Design in Kenya as we integrate it into our curricula. As the use of computers spreads in Kenya, Virtual Reality and Digital Design promise to redesign us if we do not take them under our insightful and vigilant control.

In order to stimulate discussion and introspection about the many issues related to the Management of Indigenous Knowledge, the author builds on earlier publications and examples drawn from nearly five decades of participant observation in Kenya. Consideration is given to the historical conflict in attitudes toward the management of knowledge in general during pre-colonial, colonial and post independence periods. Culture-based systems and their caretakers have faced intrusion and misappropriation by self interested parties while vast bodies of knowledge have been lost as the generations that held that knowledge have expired. In plans for management of indigenous knowledge, the range of stakeholders and changes in applicability over time must be considered. Examination of categories and dichotomies of Indigenous Knowledge and modes of collection, expression, storage and dissemination can inform the small and large scale planning and implementation of indigenous knowledge management.