#87,
Decision: Introducing kasahorow.com
Date of Decision: January 2024
Decision Maker: KASAHOROW
Target Group: KASAHOROW community
Reason for Decision: Integration
KASAHOROW’s Paa Kwesi Imbeah chatted to Ekow Richardson from Afro Parenting Village about attachment theory, parenting and the launch of kasashorow.com.
Afro Parenting Village aims to empower parents through their resources, programs, and workshops. When Ekow Richardson met Paa Kwesi Imbeah and heard about KASAHOROW’s drive to help people improve and create safe relationships, he wanted to share this with the Afro Parenting Village community.
KASAHOROW was initially established to get Africans talking to themselves in their own language. But over the years, kasahorow’s vision began to change as we realised that the reason we don’t talk may not be due to a lack of opportunity, but because we don’t know how to communicate with each other in a way that makes us feel safe, instead of threatened.
Attachment Theory has become a popular relationship theory, used by many to understand how people relate to each other and how to improve the way they relate to each other. The theory focuses on the attachment built between a child and their primary caregiver in the early years and states that people’s behaviour is predicted based on this attachment style.
There are two main types of attachment: secure attachment and insecure attachment. Many people have insecure attachments, which lead them to operate insecurely in future relationships. However, it’s never too late to learn how to operate securely. As an adult, we can unlearn our insecure attachment and recognise how we can create safety in our relationships, leading to healthier communication and stronger bonds.
Learning your personal attachment style can help your children too, as you begin to understand how to operate in a secure way with them. There are lots of resources out there to assist parents and, indeed, anyone looking to operate securely in their relationships. One way to get started is by taking an attachment style quiz to understand what our attachment style is.
Of course, even if we’re able to teach children how to operate in a secure style, our experiences later in life can affect how we operate (we may become insecure). But if we were raised in a secure environment, we can remember what it was like to operate in a secure environment and find our way back to this.
It’s important to remember that attachment should not be thought of as a box. The goal is to help us understand who we are. From here, we can try to understand what secure behaviours are and how to access them. This often starts with anger management. Asking ourselves: how do I behave when I am angry? What happens when I am angry in a relationship? How long does it take me to realise I am angry?
Once we understand what our anger feels and looks like, we can start to listen to our bodies and work to understand how to respond to calm ourselves down.
There are four basic triggers: hunger, tiredness, loneliness (does anyone understand me) and persistent anger. The first two are easily remedied, but loneliness and persistent anger require a deeper understanding. When anger comes from a place of loneliness, we can work towards helping someone feel understood. When someone has persistent anger, we need to be sensitive to how we enter this person’s space and find a safe way to ask how we can help them feel less angry.
kasahorow.com was created to help people create safety in their relationships through language. Language and culture form a large part of our identity. We can create connections and show we care simply by using a word in a language someone cares about. We can learn what words help them feel safe and what words to avoid - a simple way to create a deep connection.
Imagine the power of just being able to say ‘sorry’, ‘I love you’ or ‘I need help’ in your loved one’s language. We can use language to enter a person’s space safely, and to make them feel understood.
You can connect to someone you care about by signing up to our word-a-day email at kasahorow.com. You’ll receive one word in your inbox to practise saying with your loved one and unpack how this made them feel. Should you use that word more with them? Or maybe it’s something they don’t like and you can avoid it. Either way, you are learning more about them and how to communicate with them safely, one word at a time.