MINISTRY OF SPORTS, CULTURE AND HERITAGE MEDIA BRIEFING BY AMB (DR.) AMINA MOHAMED, CABINET SECRETARY FOR SPORTS, CULTURE AND HERITAGE ON THE OCCASION OF THE VISIT BY H.E OLIVIA GRANGE, MINISTER FOR CULTURE, GENDER, ENTERTAINMENT AND SPORT, REPUBLIC OF JAMAICA
Ladies and Gentlemen
I am delighted to host my sister and colleague, H.E (Hon.) Olivia Grange, Minister for Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Republic of Jamaica and welcome the entire Jamaican delegation to our beautiful country.
This year, the Republics of Kenya and Jamaica negotiated a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) anchoring cooperation in the areas of Sports, Culture and Heritage with the objective of sharing skills, techniques, experiences, information, documentation and knowledge through reciprocal participatory activities and exchanges and cooperation in various aspects of heritage and cultural expression.
We signed the MOU on 5th August 2019 during a State visit by His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta to Kingston, Jamaica.
The Republic of Jamaica is world-renowned for Reggae Music which was inscribed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in 2018 (13.COM).
Following the State visit, I met H.E (Hon.) Olivia Grange on the sidelines of the IAAF World Championships, 2019 in Doha Qatar and agreed to commence the operationalization of the MOU through a Concert in Nairobi right before the Jamhuri Day Celebrations.
As a result of these discussions, Jamaican music artist, Chris Martin will feature as the main act during a concert scheduled for 7 th December 2019 (tomorrow) at the Impala Grounds, Ngong Road.
Other Jamaican Artists performing at the event are DMajor, Future Fambo and DillGin. Kenyan artists Elani, Masauti, Ben Soul, JFam and Havoc among others will also feature in this inaugural act of cultural cooperation between our two countries. I invite you all to this concert.
Moving forward, we will initiate a music exchange program between Kenya and Jamaica to deepen this cooperation.
Based on the competencies in our two countries, we are working on an implementation program to:
Exchange amateur athletes. Kenya will accommodate amateur Jamaican Long-distance athletes at Kenya’s High-Altitude training centres in Ngong and Nyahururu where they can train with our own seasoned athletes in the marathon and road running disciplines. We will also send Kenyan sprinters to Jamaica (200m, 400m, 400m hurdles and 800m) to train with seasoned Jamaican athletes.
Create a World U-20 Athletics knowledge and skills-transfer program where Jamaican Ministry Officials will be invited join the Kenyan Local Organising Committee ahead of the World Athletics U20 Games for resource cooperation during the organisation of the games.
Cooperate in Anti-doping initiatives. Kenya is focused on developing a fully accredited anti-doping laboratory to serve the Eastern, Central, West and North African regions. There is only one accredited laboratory in Africa based in the Republic of South Africa. An accredited laboratory in Kenya will, therefore, be a welcome addition which will greatly improve testing in the region. Kenya has commenced discussions with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to support the establishment of the lab in Nairobi. As sporting nations, Kenya and Jamaica will share and mutually learn from experiences in this sensitive area.
Kenya has also commenced a law review process that proposes criminal sanctions against athletes, agents, managers, medical personnel and coaches found guilty of doping. Sports ethics and discipline have also been incorporated into the Competency-based Education and Training Curriculum to provide a solid foundation of sports development in the country; a potential field of mutual learning between Kenya and Jamaica.
Kenya also welcomes the first exchange visit of high and mid-level officials in the field of culture to engage in a week-long, co-created program on development, preservation, expansion and efficient management of national museums, monuments and galleries. This exchange will focus on Kenya and Jamaica’s experiences as countries with rich histories, cultures and heritage.
Kenya also invites Jamaica to develop a program of cooperation in national information management through national libraries. Kenya has a National Library which has branches across eight regions and public libraries in 47 counties. National Libraries are nodes for the citizens to access public information, reading material, and research facilities. The automation of the Kenya National Library through an ongoing digitisation program will make it possible for Kenyan citizens to access information from the national library from their mobile phones broadening the base of access to more than 20 million citizens.
National Libraries exchanges will anchor a knowledge-based partnership to broaden learning and strengthen our historical ties during this International Decade for People of African Descent
(2015-2024).