Habari Gani?

Ujima!

Hello and welcome to the third day of Kwanzaa, Ujima. Ujima represents Collective Work and Responsibility. In essence this day focuses on the need for us to work together, to internalize the needs of each individual in the community and work collectively to maintain that community working towards solving our problems. The feeling that we are all responsible for each other is an important part of Ujima.

If we don't have a sense of connectivity, then we cannot conceive of the need to work together. The African American and Pan-African communities are expansive. When we speak of community in this context, it is meant as a collective gathering of our people wherever they may be. In the United States, we still have 'Black communities' concentrated near larger metropolitan areas but we are widespread in the suburbs and rural areas. So, in this respect, you may feel that the concept of Ujima is no longer applicable. You can espouse this concept by doing simple things like what we saw in the Obama campaign-many small community organizations developed all over the nation. You had the opportunity to create your own group right in your own home if you wanted to.

The 'community' has many problems, issues and concerns upon which we can all focus our attention. For example, with the global problem of teen pregnancy, we can work on educating our own children, teaching them abstinence, getting them the proper birth control. We can volunteer to help tutor school-age children so that they perform better academically. We can organize a community garden, teaching each other how to raise our own food. There are so many things we can do. The key is doing them together all over the world.

It starts small but can grow to something much larger, just as Kwanzaa has grown over the years.

Harambee!