A Planning Teleconference – Saturday April 12, 2008
- 3-7 p.m. East Africa Time [+3GMT]
- 8 a.m. – 12 noon Eastern USA Standard Time [-5GMT]
- 12 noon – 4 p.m. [+0 London GMT]
Agenda:
1. Planning the forthcoming Ugenya Cultural Festival
2. Development Activities in Ugenya
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http://ugenya.blogspot.com/2008/03/ugenya-plans-first-cultural-festival-in.htmlÂ
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Ugenya plans first Cultural Festival in Dec ‘08
SEGA, SIAYA–March 23, 2008–People from Ugenya/Uholo of Siaya district plan their first cultural festival in December 2008. The Cultural Festival is an annual event designed to promote cultural, historic, development and community ties.
A committee for the festival has been set up but with various chairs of publicity, merchandise and food vendors, children’s entertainment and general entertainment still yet to be selected.
“We’re are also looking for someone to hold the chair for our volunteer committee,” Ugenya-Uholo Development Cooperative (UUDC) Chair, Richard Chodha said. “We would like to get as many volunteers, especially from Ugenya abroad, to help out as possible.”
The planning group will be working to draft a festival schedule as well as organizing several fundraising events for mid 2008.
The three pillars of the festival are:
§ Celebrating the history and culture of Ugenya and Uholo
§ Promoting local, sustainable community amenities
§ Identifying and responding to community development issues
The fair this year will include merchandise vendors, sports such as traditional wrestling, football, tug-of-war, traditional food vendors and entertainment, all reflecting the various cultural practices of the people of Ugenya.
Music, dancers and other features will be the entertainment. Children’s entertainment will include similar activities geared more toward younger age groups.
A raffle and art exhibit will also be available, along with informational booths sharing information about the cultural practices being represented.
Ugenya daughters married outside Ugenya (affectionately called “wagogniâ€) and their offspring are very welcome to participate in both the festival and UUDC.
UUDC is an organization geared towards socio-economic development of Ugenya.
Visitors from outside cordially welcome to the Ugenya Cultural Festival, which encourages people to interact and learn about the various cultures and backgrounds of their fellow country men and women.
To help fund the festival this year, UUDC is tapping into various resources for sponsorship. Local clubs and various fund-raising opportunities help fund the committee plans including entertainment, vendors and publicity.
“We’ve been working on the planning for this event since the middle of 2007,” Chodha, who is a teacher at Siror Primary School, East Ugenya said. “This is large scale in comparison with anything we’ve done in the past.”
“We want to show Ugenya people, their friends and well-wishers who love Ugenya that they can have fun and get to know people through our events and activities,” Chodha said.
“This upcoming festival is going to be a lot of fun, and its going to support local socio-economic development like nothing else we’ve done before.”
For more information contact dongruok.ugenya@yahoo.co.uk;
Tel.: 0721-762-374 (Kenya) or +1-647-208-1265 (Abroad)
Website: www.ugenya.blogspot.com
Mani gima ber ahinya. We are ready to help
This is a wonderful thought which will help alot in enlightening the present generation on their roots and values.
As it is now most of us can’t even speak fluent mother tongue let alone understand the language when spoken by the older generation.
With such, we cannot understand the importance of some of the actions in our culture.
As we begin doing this (the festivals), we need to do alot of research in different villages, get the people who are conversant with the culture as in food, games, celebrations and the wordings of the LUO language (JODONGO) to give us guidelines through the past, eg. where did the name Ugenya come from? Who were the first group into Ugenya?
In the course of this we would also like to know why almost all LUO TABOOS are only quelled by “DOK K’ACHIENA”?
Ondhonya
Question:
Did this ever happen? When is the next one.