Celebration Preparation

The Values: Come to the celebration with a profound respect for its values, symbols, and practices and do nothing to violate its integrity, beauty, and expansive meaning.

The Principles: Celebrate first two principles on 1st day and last two principles on the 7th day with every other day celebrating each successive principle respectively.

The Symbols: Decorate household with objects of art and colorful African, African-American, and LGBT memorabilia and cloth. Make sure to have all symbols well in advance.  Some of the symbols such as the candles and Kinara are sometimes difficult to find around the Holidays.  It is advised to get these symbols well in advance to avoid not being prepared.  We also encourage you to start where you are: the symbols are important but the values are more important.

Greetings:

The holiday greeting is “Joyous KuchuQwanzaa (call and response)

T Gani: The greeting for each day of KuchuQwanzaaa is “T Gani” which is Swahili for “What’s the T?” and is generally asked by that day’s facilitator.  What’s the Tea is a colloquial expression used in African-American LGBT communities, predominantly gay men, to ask “what’s up” or “what’s going on.”  The answer to “T Gani” is provided by community members and is that day’s principle.

There is generally one facilitator of each day.  The facilitator helps lead discussion but is also considered an active member of the KuchuQwanzaa community and is not seen as “the leader” but someone appointed to help facilitate greetings and group discussion.

Everyday: Greeting of community members, reading aloud and Discussion/Activity of the day’s principle, piece of historical information about KuchuQwanzaa, gifting (morning), the day’s activity, and lighting of one candle (evening until bedtime),

 Suggested KQ Activities

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