All roads lead to Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Dowa where the 6th edition of Tumaini Festival is scheduled to take place from 1st to 2nd November.
According to Tumaini Festival founder Menes La Plume, all the signs are showing that this is going to be the biggest music and cultural experience of the year.
“Every work is done, artists are excited and team is ready and community at Dzaleka, people from Malawi and those from outside are waiting for the 2 big days of fun and cultural exchange,” he assured.
He further disclosed that Tumaini Letu organization and festival has managed to raise over MK12 million through the online crowdfunding campaign.
“We raised more than we were asking for. We raised €15,244 from 128 contributors from all over the world. The money has been used to organize this year’s festival and the rest will be used to fund Tumaini Letu organization activities at the refugee camp,” he said.
According to Menes, this year’s home stay program during the festival has been limited to only 400 visitors this year.
“Visitors are very interested to come and stay in refugee houses and share the experience with people at Dzaleka, but we are trying to limit the number of visitors. We can only host 400 visitors. That’s the number we can manage this year,” he stressed.
As per tradition, Tumaini has attracted a number of performing acts ranging from poetry, drama to music who will perform to the audience free of charge.
This year’s performers include Patience Namadingo, Suffix, Rudo Mkukupa Chakwera, Lady Pace, Provoice, Danny Kalima, Krazy Colors, RJ the DJ, Peoples EmCee, Iaria Lee (USA), The Radioactive Blog (RSA) and Tudulos (Mozambique).
Tumaini Festival has also united different nationalities of performers from DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Belgium, UK, Italy and South Korea.
So far, the festival has gained national and international media coverage and it has achieved a media reach estimated at 40,000,000 people worldwide, presenting a genuinely different and positive story about refugees.
