<
http://www.shabait.com/articles/q-a-a/10036-eri-youth-festival-5th-yet-ever
-more-refreshing-> Eri-Youth Festival: 5th yet Ever More Refreshing
Friday, 29 June 2012 03:05 | Written by Kesete Ghebrehiwet |
http://www.shabait.com/images/stories/pics/0%201%20ibrahim-hassen-2.jpgMr.
Ibrahim Hassen
The 5th Eritrean Youth Festival will be held in Sawa from 13 to 15 July
2012. This festival is basically of the youths, but people from all walks of
life have been part of it. The main objective of the youths gathering is to
enable Eritrean youths throughout the country and also youths from abroad
share experiences among each other. Every two years, in the summer time, it
has been a gathering where youths demonstrate their talent in varied
disciplines. It is simultaneously a give and take relationship which has
been fostered among the youths. Every youth could find some grand values to
share and experiences to gain from Sawa's festival. It is from this outlook
that youths eagerly wait to be part of upcoming festival. In this festival,
parents and other visitors get a chance to see what the potentials of the
youths are and children get inspired of what the role model youths have
accomplished and of the talents the youths have to offer them. Below is an
excerpt of the interview conducted with Mr. Ibrahim Hassen, NUEYS'
chairperson of holidays coordinating committee, in connection with the
preparations that have been made to colorfully hold the 5th National Youth
Festival under the theme .....
Q: Mr. Ibrahim, let's begin with the primary objective of the National Youth
Festival?
The major aim of the festival is to open a venue for mutual experience
sharing among youths from different parts of the country and youths from
abroad. The festival has also been a venue for awareness rising programs.
It has also been a platform where youths identify their talents and display
their work accomplishments every two years. This festival indeed is an
occasion where unity, commitment, and hardworking nature of youths have by
far been nurtured and where the youths learn their culture and dig deep into
it through the cultural shows staged there. All in all, the primary
objective of this festival is to increase youths' awareness through the
seminars and presentations of research papers and thereby ensure major
participation of youths in the country's development programs. Almost all
programs of this year's festival would mainly be focused on reflecting what
contributions have the youths' made in different sectors in the last 20
years.
Q: What sort of programs can we expect in this 5th festival?
Most of the programs have repetitively been staged in every festival. Such
regular programs include cultural shows, traditional sports competitions,
other traditional talent shows, presentation of research papers, and key
note seminars.
Q: Have you introduced any new program?
As the primary objective of the festival has been to acknowledge youths'
contributions and talents, what is uniquely introduced in this year's
festival is that to identify, encourage and to award talented youths who
have made unique contributions in the last 20 years. What pushed to the
introduction of this awarding program is that to further encourage youths'
creative ability in reinforced manner.
Q: How has women's participation been handled?
Women's participation is among the programs in which special focus have been
given. The programs are arranged in a manner that ensures equal
participation of men and women. The work directives have been stressing on
giving equal opportunity without and sort of gender bias. Thus, all the
preparations made in the previous festivals and the competitions organized
had been in a way that ensures participation of men and women alike and this
year's festival would not be different in this respect. There would be also
equal participation of women in research paper presentations aimed at
increasing youths' awareness and varied development programs of the country
addressing from the bottom line. The issues that would be discussed on the
papers will focus on the contribution of youths in varied developments
programs carried out in the past 20 years, their participation in the
overall national programs, and their awareness in vast disciplines. These
papers are open for discussions.
Q: Cultural and sports activities have been staged in each youths festival.
Could you brief us about the organization and the sorts of competitions we
are going to expect?
The competitions have been arranged in a way that participates youths from
inside the country and from abroad. If we see on the sports competitions,
for instance, teams from Europe and the Middle East will compete with teams
of higher educational institutions. And in the cultural programs, all the
six regions of the country have beforehand been making due preparations to
perform traditional and modern cultural shows. All the regions are now about
to finalize their preparations. The cultural competitions are expected to
inspire and increase youths' cultural know-how.
Taking in to account that the festival should not be confined just to
celebrations of three days, sports and cultural shows have already been
conducted earlier in the cities of Asmara, Mendefera and Keren and winners
of the competitions will travel to perform in Sawa. There will be also a
concert and a half marathon running contest in Asmara.
Q: What could you tell us about cultural troupes from diaspora?
Yes, cultural groups of Eritrean youths from abroad will participate. EriAm
Sisters and other cultural groups will perform in Sawa. We have also invited
other cultural groups to give additional color to the festival.
Q: What are the expectations about the participation of observers in terms
of number and if preparations have been made to accommodate greater number
of people?
In each festival, there have been a growing number of participants. Youths
form inside the country and also from abroad would be participating in
greater number than before. We are expecting that, there would be
participation of over 30 thousand people. We are also making due
preparations to avoid any sort of shortcoming. Service givers will
definitely be increased. All in all, we have been working to ensure that
efficient services would be rendered. We have been working hard to realize
that participants of the festival should get sufficient accommodations and
supplies of foods and drinks. A committee that has been setup to facilitate
such services continues to exert efforts towards that end. We are very
optimistic that this festival would be held colorfully with the
collaboration of Sawa Center of Education and Vocational Training, Harat
Transportations Company, the Ministry of Tourism and all regional
administrations.
Thank you!
Received on Sun Jul 01 2012 - 11:50:52 EDT
