It’s time for Africa!
Regional Events happen in most UWC schools and it is an opportunity where people from a certain region get to showcase their culture to the rest of the community in terms of fashion, dance, music etc. At MUWCI, we usually have regional evenings that are organized by the students from that region. This year, we decided to have a regional week for Africa! This was necessary because we felt as though the community did not know much about Africa and we wanted to educate them on the differences on our cultural differences and diversity.
Our regional week ran from Friday evening up till Monday evening and we had planned some exciting things to showcase to the community. Firstly, we met up and talked about the different things we would like to do. We had many different ideas ranging from Fashion Shows to contests to poetry evenings. After all out ideas were in place, we divided ourselves into different teams depending on the areas we were interested in.
The different activities we decided to showcase to the community would be a fashion show on Friday where we would get students who were interested to model our attire from the different regions. After the fashion show, we would have a dance party where we would play strictly African music and get our friends to groove and move with us. I joined the Fashion Show team and the dance party team. For the fashion show, I would have to:
Collect data about the numbers of clothes in my Wada
Afterward, decide who can wear what so that we will know who to ask
Before the event, find out who will do the make-up
On the date, Friday, facilitate a dress rehearsal in the MPH
Make sure that whoever does the makeup is there and that everything is fine
For the dance party, I would have to:
Find the songs for the dance party
Arrange the MPH as soon as the fashion ends to make it ready for the party
Find all the necessary equipment required
It was very exciting to get the opportunity to showcase my culture and give everyone a taste of home. The fashion show and dance party went very well. People in the audience loved the performance and we all had fun modeling our attire. Photos from the fashion can be found in the photo gallery section.
On Saturday, we planned to screen a movie called ‘Beasts of no nation’ which is a film about a civil war raging in Africa and a fierce warlord (Idris Elba) trains a young orphan (Abraham Attah) to join his group of guerrilla soldiers. This film was very emotional in many aspects and we thought it was important to have this screening.
On Sunday, we had a discussion session with the members of the community and addressed certain aspects of our identity such as what being African means to us and how it had been living in India. We discussed the misconceptions that we have heard about Africa that shock us or that we never thought about back home. We also talked about the stereotypes to do with African people that we’ve encountered and how they made us feel. Finally, we concluded with a Q & A session and people got to ask us any questions they had about ourselves or our countries.
For the final day of the Africa Regional Week, we had an arts and poetry evening. People read poems or wrote their own poems. I performed ‘I rise’ by Maya Angelou with a group of my friends. To conclude, we taught the audience how to do the shuffle (a dance move we do at all MUWCI parties). It was a very beautiful way to end the week!
Thank you for reading and find pictures from the fashion show in the photo gallery section!
