SWAHILI • autumn language workshops
On November and December, the Museum of African Art organizes the Swahili Autumn Language Workshops for adults (16+), guided by Marija Panić, PhD, Benjamin Towett Chemarum and Ivana Vojt.
Autumn workshops last from November 1st to December 27th 2026.
The workshops are intended for beginners and people who already speak Serbian.
Eventually, each student will be qualified for basic communication in Swahili.
There is a Swahili proverb: MTU NI WATU, which means A PERSON IS PEOPLE.
Swahili is constantly being changed by its speakers who continually develop the language by including words borrowed from other languages. Arabic, Hindi, Gujarati, Persian and, more recently, English are the most noted contributors. However, there are traces of Portuguese and German, not to mention the contributions made by local languages. In a way, Swahili is a reflection of all the connections that have, in a long historical period, been created among different peoples!
As a language, Swahili presents no serious difficulties for Serbian speakers: the language is more or less written as it is spoken and uses the same ‘continental’ vowel sound system found in Serbian. For those who are interested in learning this language for personal development, travelling or communication with business partners in Africa, Swahili is the right choice! Swahili-language workshops will enable participants to learn basic words and phrases in an engaging and interactive way.
The Autumn Swahili Workshop 2026 will be led by:
Marija Panić, PhD
Works as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Philology and Arts (University of Kragujevac), where she teaches French literature and culture.
As a linguist she has always been interested in Swahili and it is with great enthusiasm that she started learning it in 2015 at Swahili Language Workshops at the Museum of African Arts in Belgrade. She is very interested in African arts and literature and in the mutual influence of African and European cultures.
As a language teacher Marija has taught French, Italian and English at language courses, at grammar school, at British international school and at the faculty.
She has been teaching Swahili at the MAA from 2018.
Benjamin Towett Chemarum
A student at the The Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture of the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Forestry.
Born in Kenya, a country in which 51 million people live, 42 ethnical groups who have their native languages, but Swahili is the language spoken by 15 million Kenyans. After independence, the Kenyan government adopted the Swahili as a national language to unite different ethnical groups.
He is interested in languages from an early age, and during his studies and education, Benjamin's essays written in English and Swahili have often proved to be the best.
As a native Swahili speaker and instructor, he joined the Swahili language workshops at the Museum of African Art in 2019 while pursuing his master's studies in Belgrade, and later continued his collaboration with the workshops as a guest lecturer.
Ivana Vojt
Curator of the Museum of African Art since 2010.
She graduated in art history from the Faculty of Philosophy and theatre and radio directing from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade.
Together with Galina Tudyk and Amosi Rwangaria, the first lecturers of Swahili language workshops, she created a foreign language learning program at the museum, which she has been implementing since 2015.
Swahili culture is an important part of her interest.
For more information about the workshop contact:
Ivana Vojt, MAA curator
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
phone: 011/ 2651 654
Previous teachers at the Swahili workshops:
Galina Tudyk (2015–2017)
Amosi Peter Rwangaria (2015–2018)
Benjamin Towett Chemarum (2019)
Rose Muthoni Thumbi (2020–2025)
