We live in an era where
information flows from all corners of the sphere, every second. With such an
influx, and this being a knowledge-hungry society, we are prone to what King
Solomon would say in the holy scriptures thus; “in a multitude of words sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his
lips is wise.” Back then, the major medium of information was the word of
mouth. Centuries later, we have innumerable sources of information yet some are
still being invented.
Since people want to hear
us, we feel obligated to share anything any time we receive it. This has
brought in the error of fake news. As an artiste as well as an observer of
other artistes, it is sometimes embarrassing when I hear songs that create illusive lifestyles, promote propaganda, hatred and disrespect to the human
race and the deity.
I take this opportunity
to applaud Young African Leaders Network (YALI) for coming up with a
sensitization program dubbed YALICHECKS.
This was intended to influence young people to verify information before
sharing. This was a challenge that I took and thought about how I had been
sharing information previously. After making the resolve and defeating the
temptation of forwarding updates on whatsapp regardless of how juicy they
seemed, I organized an event at the Kenya National Library Services yesterday.
Since music is my
God-given tool for communication, I wrote a short song which saw all the
attendees pledge to Stop. Reflect.
Verify before sharing information. Being part of Dowe Music & Arts, I
believe in authenticity and I think this tagline is timely and it’s a good
action point to pass on to students, fans and friends. The lyrics of the song
are as follows:
I pledge to,
Stop! Check! Reflect-Verify
information
I won’t share anything I don’t know
If
you want to listen to the soundbite of the tune just click Yalichecks Song
I
strongly believe that if everyone (especially the young people) took time to
sieve the kind of information s/he receives, then our society can be a better
place. We won’t fight on account of what we heard was said about us, we won’t
live on someone else’s speech, we will get good music that is authentic and
this will make us appreciate our motherland- Afrika the more.
Below
are ample photos of the event we had yesterday.
Remember to ‘Stop. Reflect. Verify information before
sharing responsibly.
A big thank you to the American Corner courtesy of the US Embassy and Knls Nakuru for the space.
This was such a nice step to advocate for the stop-check-reflect-verify initiative. I missed this, feels so bad
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DeleteI pledge to stop reflect and verify information. What an informative forum we had!Thanks
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you.
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