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Sh15m Rehabilitation for Cultural Site

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Published on Wednesday, 19 March 2008 17:22
The Government will rehabilitate a pre-historic site in Kisii at a cost of Sh15 million to serve as a tourist attraction in the western Kenya circuit. Manga Escarpment will also serve as a preservation centre for cultural artefacts.

In a move to boost tourist numbers, the Ministry of National Heritage will fund the rehabilitation of Manga Escarpment, where a 50-year-old building named Baraza Hall is designated to serve as a community museum.

A similar budget has been set aside for the construction of traditional huts, exhibition shelves, purchase of traditional regalia and hiring of performers when the musuem construction is completed.

While on a tour yesterday, the National Heritage Permanent Secretary, Mrs Alice Mayaka, said the site would also serve as the Abagusii Cultural Centre, promoting domestic tourism. Manga Escarpment would also be considered for inclusion in the list of places of outstanding universal value and a catalogue of tourist attraction sites.
The PS revealed that the project was part of a wider project to spread community museums across the country to promote cultural preservation.

She said similar projects-Koitalel and Taita museums were on course in the Rift Valley and the Coast provinces. Mayaka said her ministry was working with Tourism and Foreign Affairs ministries to ensure the sanctuary, coupled with other tourism sites like Thimlich Ohinga in Migori, Nabongo Mumia, Mount Elgon and Kisumu museums, would rescue Kenya's tourism recently dented by post-election violence.

She disclosed that the tourism ministry was strategically diversifying its product for market sustainability, where heritage and community culture was being branded as a key tourist attraction. Among the sites that have also been re-branded are the Sibiloi archaeological site, Lamu Mixed Cultural Centre and the equatorial snow-capped Mount Kenya.

The PS said though development partners were welcome to support the project, a draft resolution to govern UNESCO s funding of community museums had not been passed, and therefore the Museum remained a Government initiative.