#KeCultureLives in Ukombozi Library 

Freedom of speech, debate, and inquiry was curtailed heavily during the colonial period. As such, much information on Kenyan culture, the events leading up to independence, and even post-colonial Kenya were majorly passed down in oral traditions and sometimes in outlawed publications. With time, many became ignorant of such progressive literature, including mainstream libraries and learning institutions. 

As Joshua Awori warned in his elderly wisdom, “Forgetting our heritage is like forgetting ourselves. We become empty shells with nothing to refer to,” the need for a library that sheds light into the journeys of our brilliant men and women and the becoming of our nation was necessary. 

As a result, a group of progressive African libraries and information activists in partnership with independent publishers like Vita Books and freedom movements including Mwakenya December Movement and the Mau Mau Research founded Ukombozi Library in 2017 to put an end to the information struggle by making available progressive literary material and supporting revolutionary reading, study, and research by working people in Kenya. 

Finally, social literature could be found at the Nairobi CBD, just across the road from the University of Nairobi. The library has a collection of over a thousand titles of progressive material, comprising of books, pamphlets, videos, and photographs.  

Additionally, the library brought to life Nazmi Durrani’s and the December Twelve Movement’s underground library set up in the 1980s. Nazmi, a librarian for the movement and passionate political activist stocked up classics that are now either out of print or cannot be found in the local bookshops and can only be found at Ukombozi.   

The library implements a community involvement initiative called ReachOut which takes the library to various communities to enhance personal and national development. It also urges community groups, other libraries, and institutions to register as its institutional members so that they can borrow books. Mathare Social Justice Centre, Wahenga Artists in Kayole, and Dandora Community Justice Centre can attest to the intentionality of Ukombozi Library to reconcile the community with important information in history. 

Ukombozi also brings together college students and social movement activists from the older and younger generations in Kenya and beyond to read, share, discuss, and reflect on progressive books, publications, and ideas.  

Truly, the Ukombozi Library is redefining access to information on history and social justice and championing cultural and social democracy for all those who have been discriminated against. The past, the present, and the future of #KeCulture will live on through the library’s unrelenting pursuit of our stories.