The Celebration of Kwanzaa : Day 3 – UJIMA (Collective Work & Responsibility)

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Kwanzaa is a week long celebration honoring African, African American heritage and culture. As African American and Pan-African holiday celebrated by millions throughout the world African community, Kwanzaa brings a cultural message which speaks to the best of what it means to be African and human in the fullest sense.

Kwanzaa celebrates the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Nguzo Saba (originally Nguzu Saba—the seven principles of African Heritage). These seven principles comprise a Swahili term for tradition and reason.

The third day is UJIMA which means Collective Work & Responsibility.

On this day we renew our efforts to build and maintain our community, while working with others to solve our problems.

In traditional Africa, the Caribbean, and the South, when farmers work together to clear the land, and bring in each other’s crops, they demonstrate Ujima. When immigrants form small, tight-knit groups for circulating money called “partners” or “boxhand” or “susu” or “ekub,” they exhibit Ujima too.

When friends are moving, and you and the others all pitch in to help them move – and at the end of the day, sit down together to a huge home-cooked meal – that is Ujima, Collective Work and Responsibility. When students in class work together on a project, or help each other with their assignments, the spirit of Ujima is also there.

My family lives by this everyday as we work as a unit. Unity as a family is important to progress in life.

It is all about collective Work and Responsibility! Yes we are all individuals, who need to posses individualism. But we are also a people, a community, a whole, living thing that moves as one.  So Ujima!!

On the third day the black candle is lit, then the farthest left red, and then the farthest right green candle.

Happy Kwanzaa!

Source: The African Experience