The name Kwanzaa is derived from matunda ya kwanza, a Swahili phrase for "first fruits," is based on traditional African harvest festivals, combining customs from a number of different cultures. Each of the seven days represents one of the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or nguzo saba.
1. Umoja: Unity
To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
2. Kujichagulia: Self-Determination:
To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
3. Ujima: Collective Work and Responsibility
To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and solve them together.
4. Ujamaa: Cooperative Economics
To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
5. Nia: Purpose
To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
6. Kuumba: Creativity
To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
7. Imani: Faith
To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
Learn more here: https://www.interexchange.org/articles/career-training-usa/history-principles-and-symbols-of-kwanzaa/
