When Learning Became the Soul Movement of Otenga
There is something profoundly intimate about learning when it arrives slowly and naturally, without being announced or formalised. At Otenga 2.0, this form of learning grew quietly, like sunlight finding its way through bamboo. We never sat down to design a “knowledge-sharing culture,” nor did we plan elaborate structures around it. It simply began to emerge—first as scattered conversations near the end of events, then as exchanges between strangers sitting side by side, and eventually as one of the very pillars that shaped the Otenga experience.
The earliest glimpses of this came during late-evening gatherings, when a musician would casually explain that a rhythm he played came from childhood evenings during electricity cuts. A weaver once showed how she twisted threads slightly differently depending on the season. Someone else shared the memory of a wild herb that only her grandmother knew how to spot. Another visitor explained the real meaning of a folk song half the room had hummed without understanding. One day, a young artist opened up about using painting as a way of surviving grief. None of these stories came from a stage. They came naturally, in the way that real knowledge always does—through experience, through memory, through the small things that shape people’s lives.
During the prompt card interviews, we realised how deeply this touched people. A significant number of participants chose “knowledge sharing” as one of their favourite parts of Otenga, and their reasons revealed something essential. They enjoyed learning without pressure. They enjoyed the freedom to ask questions they felt too shy to ask elsewhere. They found comfort in speaking about what they knew, even if they didn’t consider themselves “experts.” Many said they felt valued for who they were—not for what they had achieved. It became clear that Otenga’s strength was not just in the programs we curated but in the kind of openness people found in the space. It was the openness that allowed them to give something of themselves.
Knowledge at Otenga did not look like formal teaching. It did not involve whiteboards, elaborate setups, or strict roles. Knowledge here looked like someone showing another person how to wrap bamboo leaves around rice. It sounded like someone explaining a rhythm their community uses during harvest festivals. It felt like a conversation about sustainability born from someone’s lived struggle with climate change. Sometimes it arrived as a poem someone had written in the middle of heartbreak. Other times it took the form of a farming trick passed down through generations. Knowledge was everything life had taught someone, offered gently to a room full of people who wanted to understand.
When we began shaping Otenga 3.0, we knew this was not something we could allow to fade. It had to become a deeper part of the experience. But the intention was never to turn it into structured “sessions.” Instead, we wanted to hold space for knowledge to flow the way it naturally did—without hierarchy, without performance, without the need to impress. In Otenga 3.0, knowledge sharing became a circular movement where everyone stood at the same level. Younger people learnt from elders, and elders learnt from younger voices. Artists discovered new insights from farmers, and farmers found resonance with musicians. People began to exchange thoughts shaped not by theory, but by lived realities—everything from craft techniques to social truths, from emotional survival to cultural inheritance.
With time, we realised that learning at Otenga changed people. Not in dramatic, life-altering ways, but gently—like a shift in perspective, a softening of the heart, a deepening of understanding. People carried these conversations home with them. They repeated them to friends. They remembered them during moments when life got heavy. And that, more than anything else, made knowledge sharing the quiet backbone of Otenga.
Today, as Otenga 3.0 grows, this remains one of the most sacred parts of our identity. People do not come to Otenga to consume content. They come to become more open, more connected, and more aware of the worlds carried within others. In that sense, knowledge sharing has never been just an activity. It is a soul movement—a gentle ripple that expands with every person who walks through Otenga’s doors and feels safe enough to share something of their own story
