Fifth of the Kwanzaa Seven Principles (Nguzo Saba)

Celebrated December 30th or Day 5 of the Kwanzaa Week

“To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.”

In “Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture” Maulana Karenga (the creator of Kwanzaa) describes purpose (nia) as “a commitment to the collective vocation of building, developing and defending our community, its culture and history in order to regain our historical initiative and greatness as a people and add to the good and beauty in the world.’

In further describing “purpose” (nia), the author discusses it in terms of four main concepts: “collective vocation”; the “heirs and custodians of a great legacy”; “generational responsibility”; and the “joining personal and social purpose”.

Regarding our “collective vocation”, Karenga defines it as our shared responsibility to build, develop and defend our community, its culture and history for the purpose of regaining our historical initiative and greatness as a people.

Karenga ends his discussion of purpose (nia) with a reference to the Odu of Ifa (a sacred African text of ethical teachings) which says that “Surely humans were chosen to bring good into the world.”