Coexistence of Culture, Environment & LAPSSET Theatre Performance

Save Lamu information booth at the Cultural Festival

On Saturday 21st November, Save Lamu Voices gave a theatre performance, entitled Coexistence of Culture, Environment & LAPSSET at the 13th Annual Lamu Cultural Festival. The workshops and performance were organized by one of Natural Justice’s partners, Save Lamu. 

The group Save Lamu Voices is a group of local actors, consisting of youth, women, and members of indigenous communities within the county such as the Bajun, Orma, Aweer and Sanye. The performance was the result of several weeks of participatory theatre workshops aiming to: 

1. Raise awareness amongst the community on the LAPSSET Project and extractives industries in Lamu; 
2. Foster dialogue amongst the community on dealing with the challenges of the impending port, including the preservation of the cultural and social identity of marginalized indigenous communities in Lamu. 

Save Lamu also sponsored the Festival’s Mshairi Poetry Competition. Mshairi poetry is an important part of Swahili culture, and a vital, popular and traditional means of conveying messages. Men and women poets submitted entries on the theme Coexistence of Culture, Environment & LAPSSET. 

About the LAPSSET Project: 

A scene from the play

Since 2009, the Government of Kenya has expressed plans to undertake a multipurpose transport and communication corridor known as the ‘Lamu Port-South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport’ (LAPSSET) Corridor. LAPSSET will consist of railway lines, a port, a super highway, a regional international airport, an ultra-modern tourist resort, an oil pipeline, and a fibre-optic cable constructed to link Lamu to Juba and Addis Ababa. Save Lamu are not asking for the project to be halted, but that the project is conducted with the free, prior and informed consent of the community and according to fair and rigorous environmental and social impact assessments.