Nia / Purpose and Cultural Strategies for Change in Education:
Kwanzaa, the Nguzo Saba and the Whole Child in the 21st Century
Copyright © 2024 / Harold Shujaa Baker / All rights reserved
“Nia / Purpose – To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.”
When children’s literacy consultant, Tiffany Rachann, is asked about her Nia / Purpose in life, she responds with details about the future of primary education in America, explaining why this country ranks poorly in educating our children – and how that should change. She has even developed children’s literacy tools specific to Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba shared below.
Tiffany’s active interest in children’s literacy began almost twenty years ago as she struggled to find children’s books with positive stories about Black families and loving relationships between siblings and extended family like in real life. With the active support of people who saw the same need, Tiffany created a children’s literacy and advocacy company called Imagiread. Through Imagiread, Tiffany and other authors write the children’s books she noticed were missing while actively working to address and correct basic childhood reading deficiencies in public education with supplemental programming.
Inspired by the broad success of her first children’s book – “It’s Water Time, Ma!” – Tiffany has developed Imagiread into a fulltime passion producing commendable results. She explains the foundation and future of her work by discussing the reaction to her first book, saying –
“Children would approach me with a sparkle in their eyes, armed with the belief that they should drink water regularly while being conscious of resource waste. Even better, they saw themselves as budding writers and problem-solvers who could become whatever they wanted if they prioritized their well-being and education to enact and achieve their true purpose.”
As for the Imagiread mission, Tiffany explains –
“My challenge back then was to find ways to shift the paradigm away from prioritizing traditional education to repositioning the enactment of family and community literacy as the critical foundation for value-added succession.”
Imagiread’s work began in the communities of Houston, TX in 2010 with a specific focus on helping children struggling with basic literacy development deficiencies. Since then, Tiffany has helped transform literacy development for more than 6,500 children through Imagiread’s supplemental programming. Imagiread has received awards from the U.S. Department of Education, Save The Children, The Houston Public Library, and Mayor Sylvester Turner for excellence in program design and administration, among other accolades.
Through a partnership with NASA, Imagiread facilitates engagements that nurture STEM familiarity and career pursuits for at-risk youth ages 9-13. Other partnerships with a host of community organizations like the Alliance for Healthier Generations, the Maine Mathematics and Science Alliance, the Texas Afterschool Alliance, and the National Afterschool Alliance have allowed Imagiread to spread awareness about access to quality instruction and the responsibility we have as a collective to ensure it is made available for every child, every family, and every community.
Most importantly, Tiffany explains –
“I have affirmed the most effective solutions are the ones that are considerate of, and responsive to, culture as social capital. Sociocultural capital has consistently shaped Imagiread’s programming and facilitation as an intricate value-created design framework. The goal has always been to empower and not exploit and because of that, we ask broader questions about the ways we identify with sociocultural capital in education, leading me to assess the repositioning of all aspects of cultural development in causal relationships, including spiritual development.”
Tiffany adds that “Imagiread is the company it is today because we have vetted the value of holistic education and how it simultaneously and comprehensively centers the whole child and, thus, the whole community.”
It is because of this focus and related positive outcomes that Imagiread was selected to coordinate the new Kwanzaa For Kids program offered through this website and the new Nguzo Saba 365 app.
See the attached links to learn more about “The Imagiread Difference” and to experience their highly innovative and interactive programming including TRU iQ, The iReadE Academy, and Future Literacy With N-Sight, an Afro-futuristic adventure.
For a full discussion of how Tiffany uses Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba / Seven Principles as “a profound sociocultural framework for Whole Child and Whole Community Education” and development, see her Nguzo Saba 365 blog post titled – “Kwanzaa and the Nguzo Saba: A Cultural Framework for Whole Child Education.”
We give thanks for Tiffany’s commitment to improving children’s literacy outcomes, and we look forward to our emerging partnership with Imagiread to continue developing a highly dynamic and engaging Kwanzaa For Kids program with a focus on cultural and STEM education initiatives.
