Different festival for Dzalobana this year

ISAAC PINIELO
Correspondent | Tuesday November 23, 2010 00:00

Speaking to Showbiz in an interview, Katlego Mononyane, who is DAF coordinator said this year's festival would only take place in Francistown unlike in the past when it used to open its doors wider across the length and breadth of the country.

According to Mononyane, the reason for carrying the festival in Francistown only is that they are mainly focusing on a Multiple Concurrent Partnership (MCP) project, which is being piloted by NACA in Francistown. The festival will only be in various locations around the city including Galo Centre, Donga Shopping Complex, White City, Kgaphamadi, Monarch and Phase IV. It will begin on Thursday next week and run over a period of seven days, targeting to reach 5000 people.

Mononyane said she was hoping that as time goes on the festival would revert to spreading across the country like it did before. By then it usually reached more than 100,000 people.

The festival, which has become one of the major highlights on the Botswana Cultural Calendar, is a youth-led, alcohol-free programme, which embraces a wide range of cultural activities including music, theatre and poetry. It is conceptualised and coordinated by the Francistown-based theatre group, Ghetto Artists in partnership with Bopaganang Basha Youth Centre. It is funded by the National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA) and Botswana National HIV/AIDS Systems (BNAPS).

According to a statement issued by Ghetto Artists, DAF is an annual festival that empowers youth aged 15-49 with life skills to reduce the incidence of HIV infection among youth through educational entertainment and participatory learning activities.

Since its inception in 2002 the festival has been seeking to promote national HIV/AIDS programmes using the Triple E approach - Entertainment, Education for Empowerment, by linking life skills with performing arts to effectively motivate behavioural change - particularly amongst the youth.

'It is strategically scheduled around World AIDS Day, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence and Human Rights Day. This strategic integration of HIV/AIDS messages to on-going activities makes it the annual focal point for our multi-sectoral grassroots HIV prevention campaign,' reads the statement.

Apart from the theatre performances, festival audiences from the seven places selected in the city should brace themselves for performances by local musicians.

'We will engage Francistown-based artists and our crowd-puller would be Makau of Sebinjolo fame,' said Mononyane.