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{
    "id": 799871,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/799871/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 230,
    "type": "other",
    "speaker_name": "",
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    "speaker": null,
    "content": "We all know that Kiswahili is our national language, yet some of us never considered Kiswahili to be important. As a result, we have suffered up to date. I cannot express myself well in Kiswahili, yet it is our national language because some of us believed that Kiswahili was a language for people who did not go to school. We could not even allow our teachers to teach us Kiswahili, and we are now paying for it. We do not want our children to go through the challenges that we have gone through. As a nation, we should have an identity. Kiswahili is our identity and that of East Africa. Whenever you travel out of this county, you feel at home when you hear somebody speak in Kiswahili. You feel that there is somebody that you can relate with. Kiswahili should be taken very seriously and be incorporated at all levels starting from Baby Class, Nursery, Primary and even University for it is important. We lack many things in Kenya and do not even have a national language. We say that Kiswahili is our national language, yet a good percentage of our people do not know it. Something should be done about it. If you go to West Africa you will see that they have their national attire but in Kenya we tend to copy things; we do not have something that we can identify ourselves with. We do not even have an attire that we can identify with. It is important that Kiswahili is taught at the right time, more so to people living with disability. I have learnt today that there is no sign language in Kiswahili, yet we have it in English. How can we have it in English, yet we do not have it in our own national language? It is important that we do it early enough and have everybody on board. It is not just about going to university. How can people living with disability communicate in the market place and in their daily lives if they do not learn Kiswahili? I agree with Sen. Kasanga that it is important that even the students without disability should learn the Kenyan sign language. If it is left to only those who do not hear, how will they communicate with the rest? If I meet somebody with a hearing disability right now, I will be so lost. I would not know how to communicate with them, thus, it is important that everybody learns it at every level. It should not just be taught at the primary level or nursery school but across board just the way we learn other languages. I support the Motion and the Senator for helping us learn some of the things that we did not know are happening in Kenya. It is a good learning cycle for us. We should correct what we can before it is late. We should not wait until the curriculum is finalized before we come up with these amendments. We can do it at the right time, which I think is now. I support the Motion."
}