Uganda to hold third edition of East Africa Art and Culture Festival

By Roland D. Nasasira
Posted 


Friday, April 1  

2016 at 

01:00

In March 2010, the 20th meeting of the East African Community Council of ministers and the subsequent 23rd council of ministers meeting held in September 2011, directed the East African Community Secretariat to organise regular East African Community arts and culture festival on a rotational basis.
Upon that agreement, the first edition of the festival, which in Swahili is Jumuiya ya Africa Mashariki Utamadini Festival (JAMAFEST) was held in February 2013 in Kigali, Rwanda. It attracted over 17,500 people. Later in 2015, Kenya hosted the second edition of the festival.
It is on that rotational basis that Uganda will, come August to September 2017, host the festival in Kampala.
Eunice Tumwebaze, the assistant commissioner, Culture at the ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development explains that the objectives of the festival include among others providing a platform to showcase culture as a primary driver of regional integration and sustainable development.
She says the festival is also aimed at bringing together East African cultural practitioners and administrators to celebrate the rich and diverse cultural heritage as well as contemporary practices of East Africa.
“As we prepare to host this festival next year, we hope that it will provide space for intercultural dialogue amongst the people of East Africa but also promote arts and culture as a tool in the celebration and banding of East African identity and image,” Tumwebaze added, during a meeting to launch JAMAFEST 2017.

Activities
Some of the cultural activities to be showcased include music, dance and movement, poetry and storytelling, drama and acrobatics, carnival. The festival will also include exhibitions and demonstrations like painting, carving, weaving, beading, pottery, film and documentary, photography, recycled art, body art, traditional medicine, design, fashion and body, adornment, food and beverage and literary works and publication.
Popular traditional games within the East African region like Omweso and wrestling, among others will also be showcased. The festival will also include children’s interactive games and past times such as kati, blada and muskumo among other play activities.
Gender, Labour and Social Development minister Rukia Nakadama, said since the inception of the festival four years ago, JAMAFEST has become a premier event in fostering unity and economic integration amongst the people of East Africa through arts and culture.
At both events held in Rwanda and Kenya, she added, partnerships in marketing cultural products were increased, awareness about the various cultures exhibited and knowledge and skills gained to better art and culture in East Africa.
“The week of activities will allow Uganda as a country to show its competitiveness advantage in cultural tourism as well as providing a platform for Ugandans to their creative skills with others in the region,” Nakadama noted.

rnasasira@ug.nationmedia.com