Celebrate Africa day with Cavan Cross Cultural Community

Cavan Cross Cultural Community will celebrate Africa Day this Saturday (May 25) with cultural festivities spread throughout the day.

The continent of Africa has been celebrating this day for the past 61 years. The day commemorates the foundation of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963 and falls on May 25 every year.

For the past four years, Cavan Cross Cultural Community have marked the day in the county town.

This year’s event will take place at Cavan Rugby Club, kicking off at 9am with a soccer tournament.

Twelve teams will go head to head on the football field until around 1pm, when the final two teams will play.

At 2pm, the main event will start with food, guest speakers, an African Day cake, medal presentations, cultural dances, face painting, opportunities to try on traditional clothing, hairdressing exhibitions with tutorials on hair braiding and singing from international groups from Ukraine, India, Latvia, Bulgaria, Botswana..

“It’s a lot, I can’t name them all,” said an out of breath Stanley Nwaneri, who is Chairperson of the Cavan Cross Cultural Community.

After 6pm, those attending can move indoors where there will be “a lot of dancing and singing.”

“It will be relaxed, people can chat and network, the bar will be open and there will be food also.”

“People can just hang around and get to know each other.”

“It’s all free, anyone can come in,” said Stanley, explaining that people are welcome to come at any time.

The first event which took place four years ago attracted 600 people whom Stanley said were mostly members of the migrant community. The following two events also attracted people from the local community which Stanley was delighted to see.

“The second and third one was huge, everyone came in from the local [community].”

“I think the food was the major thing they wanted to try,” he said, explaining that people to cooked traditional African dishes for people to taste.

“They all came, they really enjoyed it,” he said.

“Everybody had fun.”

“In Cavan we have a community group that’s very strong.”

Stanley explained that last year he heard feedback from people who said “oh I missed it, I saw all of your pictures on Facebook, I can’t wait until the next time.”

Next time is this Saturday (May 25) from 9am until midnight. Stanley encouraged everybody to come along and celebrate Africa Day.