Month: April 2023

In a bid to revive the vacoa artisan industry in Seychelles, the Little Explorers Club based at Bel Ombre has planted seven out of a scheduled 50 plants at the Domaine Val De Pres heritage site recently.

The Little Explorers plan to plant more vacoa trees at Bel Ombre in their garden where they are already cultivating fruits and vegetables. Those on Praslin, in partnership with Terrestrial Restoration Action Society of Seychelles (TRASS), are producing some more vacoa plants.

The Little Explorers Club, comprising children of 4 to 12 years old, was created by a not-for-profit organisation – Gaea Seychelles. There are presently two groups – one at Bel Ombre on the main island of Mahe and the other on Praslin, the second most populated island. The club promotes community-based activities relating to the environment, culture and tradition.

Last year, the Little Explorers focused on crafts made out of coconuts and this year it is vacoa crafts.

The vacoa is a very distinctive large parasol-shaped plant with aerial roots. It is not a palm tree. The vacoa tree can reach 20 metres in height and is used in weaving and in some countries as traditional medicines.

The director of Gaea Seychelles, Dr Elvina Henriette, said that these are skills that children are unaware of, and it is slowly fading out of Seychellois culture.

Henriette says that these days few artisans work with vacoa leaves and no one is planting the trees either, so they are trying to promote the idea of planting vacoa plants to supply the artisanal industry.

“We want these children to learn these things, this is why we did the tree planting activity. We want the children to know more about the plant and what we can do with it and later in their life they can become entrepreneurs,” she said.

“If we as adults don’t transfer the knowledge to our youth, the new generations will not know about it! It is easy to say that children of today know nothing but if we don’t share the knowledge, therefore, the children will not know,” added Henriette.

The 50 young vacoa plants were provided by TRASS, which prepared the seedlings.

The vacoa plant, which is used by artisans to make bags, hats and mats, can hardly be seen around Mahe, said the executive director of the National Heritage Resource Council, Benjamine Rose.

“Cultural practitioners have to go further into the forest to collect vacoa leaves. This tree planting activity is a very important one as it provides an opportunity to revive the vacoa industry and the fact that it is being done by the Little Explorers is very encouraging,” she added.

Source: Seychelles News Agency

Former Sudan Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok yesterday warned that the deteriorating security situation in Sudan will have long-lasting devastating effects in the region, if left unchecked.

Khartoum’s elusive search for peace after dictator Omar al-Bashir was ousted by military in 2019, has recently degenerated into war between Sudan’s army chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary leader, Lt. Gen Mohamed Hamdan.

Mr Hamdok called for an end to the generals’ battle for leadership, terming the war senseless.

‘It is a senseless war. It is a war that nobody can secure absolute win,’ Mr Hamdok said, explaining that victory over smog of death and corpses was not victory in its very essence.

‘It will be a nightmare for the world. This war has to stop. It has so many ramifications,’ the former premier said.

He, however, acknowledged the fragility of the matter, asking all the stakeholders to act fast.

Mr Hamdok was speaking in Nairobi during the Ibrahim Governance Weekend where he noted that lack of a proper governance structure had resulted in chaos in the war-torn country.

‘We need to agree on how to govern Sudan and not who governs it,’ he said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that 459 people have died and more than 4,000 injured since the battle begun mid this month.

Mr Hamdok asked envoys to approach the quest for peace with a unified voice and stance.Lack of it, he warned, was hurting his mother country and its citizens were bearing the brunt of it all.

Fragmented approach to peace in Khartoum and the insincerity in political and military arena, he observed, had complicated the already fragile transition .

Meanwhile, the former premier suggested that humanitarian corridors be opened to alleviate the suffering of those affected.

Mr Hamdok is a Sudanese public administrator who served as the 15th Prime Minister of Sudan from 2019 to 2021, and from 2021 to 2022. He resigned amid political deadlock in January 2, 2022. He spent much of his career working in international institutions before joining a three-year transitional government formed in 2019 after a revolution that overthrew al-Bashir.

Reliving the events that led to his ascension to power he said ‘it was our unity that toppled the dictatorship.’

‘The change happened but we suffered incoherent political leadership. We needed a unified political front, and this is not unique to Sudan ,’ he said of his stint as the prime minister.

In the days before the coup that bundled him out of power, he reminisced, it was already an open secret and only a matter of time before the execution.

He was ousted in a military coup but later reinstated .

‘When I reached an agreement with the military, I did so to stop bloodshed, to put a brake on the coup itself, to protect the achievements of my two years and to pave way for transition,’ he said.

The Ibrahim Governance Weekend, organised by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in Nairobi, brought together prominent African political and business leaders, civil society, multilateral and regional institutions, and major international partners, to debate the challenges and opportunities for the continent.

Source: Somali National News Agency

Mogadishu (SONNA)-Over 1,500 Somali citizens mostly students were impacted by the ongoing conflict between warring parts in Sudan according to officials of the Somalia’s Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan Sunday.

Somali Diplomat, Ahmed Abdi Hassan said that the embassy was having collaboration with Sudanese, and Ethiopian countries on extending support to the Somalis evacuating the conflict in the region.

The second group of Somali evacuees are expected to arrive in Mogadishu and Garawe towns respectively.

Source: Somali National News Agency