By Our Reporter
This was not your usual Kampala festival. While the usual Blankets & Wine was going down on the afternoon of Sunday May 6th, in Kololo, a collaboration of over a dozen NGOs organized by GZK the German Cultural Society was launching something new: a fun learning festival for children.
The first ever (annual) Azulato Children’s Festival attracted a crowd of about 1000, mostly young children running around from one activity to the next, awakening a fun, new and unique festival spirit in Kampala that looks like it will stick to Kampala like glue. From a child’s point of view, this was a whole new experience – beyond bouncing castles, skip rope or hide and seek. This was the kind of festival you want your children to attend. Spread across three gardens, each tent offered a rich learning experience in the kinds of skills your child needs, like creativity thinking, team work, problem solving and communication, played out through games, building robots, creating art from trash, learning about gardening, animation, and so much more.
Children who attended were encouraged to discover new talents and dream big. Using plastics, bark cloth, paint and kitengi, the children guided in designing ready to wear outfits and jewellery for a fashion show. While having fun, they learned to design colourful dresses, necklaces and bangles under the guidance of the FAAM club and the Ghetto Wardrobe campaign by a young woman form Kamwokya named Njola.
According to Busurwa Henry, a creative art trainer at FAAM club, their theme for the day was re-using plastics to create money-generating products. “What we do is that we cut plastics such as bottles and we dress them with Kitengi to create good designs, accessories and to make paintings.” He said.
Njola recycling initiative taught the children how to recycle industrial materials like tyres and polythene to make products like simple bags, bracelets, necklaces and key holders. Grace Nabukeera, one of the young girls who participated, said: “I like that now I can design for myself bracelets and ear rings and in the future I can sell them and make money.” She said this as she was waving her hand to show off one of her new bracelets made of plastic and kitengi.
Using expressive art and learning to express their feelings through design and art, the children were able to present a fashion show of dresses and other items they had designed themselves. This very colourful fashion line presented items designed in plastic, kitengi, buttons, DVD creations and so much more.
Like Fashion, music and dance were also among the activities that the children were learning about – and in doing so, practicing their self-expression. There was generous entertainment from children from different schools like Blessed Junior Primary school, Destiny Junior School Kibiri, Hope Katanga Kids Project, Rays of Hope Primary school and many others. Children were being taught to play different instruments like the Adungu, Thumb Piano, the Xylophone, different types of drums, etc. by local rapper and MDD teacher, MC Yala.
Through the performances, the children learned to appreciate the beautiful sound from the different instruments, as well as appreciate their culture and the where the instruments are coming from. It was a spectacular splash of cultural and modern dances, folklore, and instrumentals topped with amazing arts and crafts – plus there were several science-based activities too!
Art, Music, Dance and Drama were just a small tip of what the Azulato Children’s festival was all about, and from the shining start of this festival, it seems that there are very many reasons to look forward to the next one next year. For now, this is one of the best children’s festivals in Kampala.