Tumaini festival returns on 4th November

Amplifying from the previous three editions, Tumaini Festival an annual music and cultural event returns with a bang having more international and local acts scheduled to perform on five performance spaces.

Cultural dance
Singing during the festival
Showing their dancing skills

The festival which has been taking place at Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi since 2014 is slated to take place on 4th November this year.

This 4th edition will feature various activities including music performances, poetry, theatre, traditional dances and art exhibitions on the five performance spaces which include the main stage, the youth stage, poetry corner, theatre corner and the cultural ground.

Across the three previous editions over 14,000 people have attended the event, and 86 acts from across the world have shared the same stages with performers from Dzaleka whereby uniting 10 nationalities of performers from DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Belgium, UK, Italy and South Korea.

According to Tumaini Festival founder Trésor Nzengu Mpauni, widely known as Menes la Plume, the festival has also gained national and international media coverage.

Menes said the festival has so far achieved a media reach estimated at 40,000,000 people worldwide, presenting a genuinely different and positive story about refugees.

“Firstly, ‘Tumaini’ is a Swahili word which means ‘Hope’. The festival aims at bringing joy and hopes to refugees and also promotes the refugee camp as a place of unity, peace, coexistence and harmony.

“Tumaini Festival presents a unique opportunity to support an innovative cultural event, developed and delivered by refugees and Malawians to promote intercultural harmony through entertainment and artistic expression,” Menes who is also a Congolese slam poet narrated.

He further added that Tumaini festival allows refugees to reduce the trauma and forget about the persecutions that led people into fleeing their countries to become refugees.

Menes la Plume came to Malawi in 2008 as a political refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

At Dzaleka, he formed the Tumaini Letu (formerly known as Dzaleka Cultural Association), which aims at promoting cultural exchange among the refugees.

He has performed at several festivals including the 2013 City of Stars, the 2014 and 2015 Lake of Stars and the Mwezi Wa Wala festivals. In November 2014, Trésor introduced Dzaleka’s first arts and cultural festival called the Tumaini Festival.

In November 2015, Trésor released his debut 12-track music and poetry album titled ‘Far From Home’ in which he shares about his experiences as a refugee and the conflicts in Africa.

Previous festivals have seen performances by Lawi, Faith Mussa, Young Chilaga, Malaika Band, George Kalukusha, Amahoro Drummers, Chimzy Kelly from Zambia, Waliko Makhala, Agorosso, Malala, Robert Chiwamba, Etoile de la Paix, Tigris, Mbanaye, and many more.

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