The annual free-of-charge Khulubvi Arts and Cultural Festival comes to the limelight once again this weekend to walk its fourth stair at Nsanje Prison Ground.
Spearheaded by Nyamithambo Arts Palace led by artist activist Eric Trinta and other partners, the festival, which brings on board several activities including traditional dances and music, starts today through to Sunday.
The festival is the peak of the happenings following up on the memorial show which organisers held last month at Bangula Trading Centre to celebrate the lives of fallen artists from Lower Shire including Katelele Ching’oma, who died early this year and has been headlining Khulubvi Arts and Cultural Festival the past years.
People showed up for the memorial and Trinta is anticipating the same during the festival saying people will experience new things this year.
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“Every edition is unique in its own way and once again we have new things with some acts coming from Mozambique,” he said.
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On Wednesday, Chibuku Products Limited through its traditional opaque beer boosted the festival with a K300,000 donation.
Apart from the money, Chibuku Products Limited also promised to treat people with their products and entertainment including the presence of husky voice musician Njati Njedede.
Trinta said apart from promoting and preserving culture as well as uniting people and treating them to maximum entertainment, the festival is there to bring about change to Lower Shire Valley.
“We are building this festival to be among the top in the country. We want to use the platform as a vessel for developmental issues to do with Shire Valley,” he said.
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He said through the festival, they also want to market Lower Shire Valley saying it has a lot of resources aimed at building Malawi’s economy.
“We have sugar plantations, game reserves and Khulubvi Shrine. The country needs not to neglect Lower Shire Valley because this is a key in Malawi’s economic development,” Trinta said.
He said that since they started the festival, Lower Shire Valley is beginning to wake up from its slumber and partake in discussions in areas such as education, agriculture, tourism and arts and culture.
He observed that the country has failed to give room to the creative industry to grow at policy level.
“Arts and culture is a source of development and this is why we have this festival which has so much in it,” Trinta said.
The festival which this year is running under the theme ‘Time to shine, lets empower our people’, will acts such as Lucky Stars Band led by Boniface Ndamera, Goma Nyondo, The Jazz Africa Band, Chigo Nyasulu, Wisted Bono popularly known as Chimtengera, John Fire, Agorosso, Nyandoro Nthenga and Lommie Mafunga.
Agorosso, who also comes from Lower Shire, said he is looking forward to another exciting moment during the festival.
“I am ready and for me, it is always great to perform in my home. I just want to call upon the government and the corporate world to take time to support these initiatives because they are important especially in promoting culture,” the singer and guitarist said.
In another development, the 53rd letter writing competition grand finale will be held at Zangwendaba, Macra Mzuzu office tomorrow.
The competition attracted 440 entries across the country. Out of the total submitted, 184 submissions are from primary school learners. Spearheaded by Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) in collaboration with Universal Postal Union (UPU), a call for entries opened up in January and closed in March 2024.
