Ashay: Rites of Passage summer programmes are available for the Island’s young people

By Nadia Arandjelovic

If the only thing you know about African people is that they were enslaved and affected by disease, war and poverty in modern times, then you’ve been extremely miseducated.

That’s the word from award-winning poet and Africologist, Melodye Micere Van Putten.

Mrs Van Putten’s Ashay: Rites of Passage programme, which teaches young people about the rich culture and history of the African diaspora, has been independently introduced at four camps across the Island this summer.

The goal of the programme is to empower children with knowledge and give them insight into who they really are.

“If you think about it black people are one of the only people expected to go through life without knowledge of their own history and culture,” Mrs Van Putten explained.

“That’s profound when you think about it because all other groups of people can tell you ‘My ancestors are from Ireland, Greece, the Azores or wherever’.

“The idea that you have millions of black people around the world, plus the 30,000 or 40,000 black people here, some of whom don’t have any deeper knowledge of their history other than ‘I’m Bermudian’, that narrows the view of who you are — and as children, it limits the idea of who you can become.”

Mrs Van Putten started Ashay many years ago, after noticing that her son wasn’t getting any knowledge of black history and culture in his everyday academic experience.

She watched him go from being an academic high achiever in the Philadelphia public school system, to being just a marginal student when they moved to the suburbs.

At that time he was one of only 20 black students in a school of 2,000; there were also no black teachers or black history being taught.

“I needed to find a way to connect him,” she said. “So that summer in 1986 is when I started Ashay.”

She gathered 12 children in her living room, raised money for books and educational materials and started teaching them.

Mrs Van Putten didn’t expect it to grow much beyond that, but more families saw a need for it in the community.

The Ashay programme was later introduced at Temple University.

Mrs Van Putten was even named a rising star by Time Magazine in 1989 for her role in the scheme.

But while trying to set up the programme in Bermuda she encountered some opposition.

Shocked to learn there was no Bermuda history outlined in the curriculum guidelines, Mrs Van Putten worked to give the programme a local context and get it introduced into middle schools.

However after a local businessman complained that the programme was racist, it was yanked from the public school system and has never been reintroduced.

Mrs Van Putten decided to continue her efforts independently last year through Ashay University.

It teaches a version of the Ashay programme to adults at the National Library.

The programme was also recently launched at summer camps like the Innovative Minds Art Camp, for children ages 5 to 12; and the Mind, Body & Soul Camp, presented by Target Learning, for girls age 12 to 16.

Mrs Van Putten believes all people, no matter their race, can benefit from Ashay.

Camp children will learn about different programme objectives, such as seeing their value and genius; understanding their history and culture; and learning how they can grow in character to prepare for a successful life.

These lessons are extremely important, especially in a world that often teaches otherwise.

She said: “Sometimes black children who excel academically are teased that they are ‘trying to be white’.

“But if you know that your ancestors as African people created the first universities, that books were so prized in the ancient empires that they were the most expensive things you could purchase; and those who had higher learning were not only paid high salaries, but became counsellors and advisers to the Government, they wouldn’t be able to convince you of that.

“If you knew about that history then you’d know that anyone who is ‘working their genius’ is not ‘being someone else’ but rather being the best black person they can be.”

Mrs Van Putten said it honours our ancestors when we learn about their vast contributions.

She teaches that slavery was just a short period when compared to the many years that black people have successfully walked the earth.

Many of those former slaves didn’t have an opportunity for education.

In fact in the United States it was against the law to teach an enslaved person to read or write and would result in lashings or more serious punishments.

“The other reason why young people need to know about these things is so they understand and have a context for the opportunities they have today so they don’t squander those,” she said.

“But we cannot wait for someone to teach us our history. Other cultures, like the Jewish people who send their children to Hebrew school, don’t wait. We need to do it for ourselves.”

She said it was a powerful thing when black people were able to excel and bring their strengths and talents to the world.

“I truly believe that when black people know who they are and know they are a people of excellence, it changes things and changes the socio, economic and political landscape,” she said.

“All you have to do is look at how the landscape changed in golf when Tiger Woods came on the scene, how it changed in tennis when Serena and Venus Williams came on the courts or how it changed in medicine when you had Ben Carson being the brilliant surgeon that he is.

“Even with black inventors ... there are so many things that our genius came to bare that made our lives better and shifted how the world moves.

“So if you are talking about teaching en masse black children to ‘mind their genius’ there are going to be some people threatened by that because it will change things.

“And that is my ultimate goal to change things. But it has to start with us learning who we are.”

For more information on the Ashay summer camps, e-mail: targetsummercamp@gmail.com or imacbda@gmail.com.