Bosco Lam

Bosco Lam was born in Uganda and came to London 15 years ago. He explains why he brought books from Uganda to help him teach his children the Acholi language and culture.

Listen to Bosco (mp3, 476kb)

Transcript

'When you lose your culture, you’ve lost a very valuable asset of your life.  I’ve come back with some books, some more books, which I put in my library, that I still give to my children to read.  And although they are not interested, I still encourage them and I positively reinforce it by saying thank you for whatever one or two lines they have read…

'It makes the children unique because they are able, they are capable of speaking their own language, something different that not everybody understand. So they are able to sing their own song, they’re able to speak their own language, which other people could not understand - that’s special, that’s unique. 

'And you feel that there’s somewhere you can turn to, there’s somewhere you can go, not only here. In case of anything, there is somewhere to turn. You have got your background, you have got your backing, you have got your own history that you can talk about. So that is the cultural value, that nobody can lose it. 

'If you start to talk about it, you feel weight - you feel the weight of it, and you feel the strength of your background. So that, I think, is very valuable for individuals.'

Copyright Evelyn Oldfield Unit