Oral African storytelling is essentially a communal participatory experience. Everyone in most traditional African societies participate in formal and informal storytelling as interactive oral performance—such participation is an essential part of traditional African communal life, and basic training in a particular culture’s oral arts and skills is an essential part of our children’s traditional indigenous education on their way to initiation into full humanness.



Storytelling is thus the key instrument in the transfer and development of our cultural identities. The stories, poems and other language forms are part of our South African and various cultures and should not solely be preserved but also be kept alive for all current and future generations.



The Kwesukela Storytelling Academy strives to contribute to a healthy communal society which recognises the wisdom of the African oral tradition and the use of inclusive traditional culture. The academy uses the expertise on storytelling as a force for social change redressing past inequalities.