Eritrean Scandinavian Festival 2018
Stockholm, Sweden. July 26th-29th 2018
The 20th edition of Eritrean Scandinavian Festival took place from the 26th to 29th of July at Eggeby Gård in Stockholm, Sweden. The event brought together Eritrean government officials, Eritreans in the Diaspora, various Eritrean organizations and friends of Eritrea from all over the world who came to Stockholm to get the pleasure from the Eritrean cultural heritage.
The festival, with its sole purpose of showcasing the Eritrean culture has grown to become one of the world’s biggest non-profit events. Participants, mostly Eritrean organizations in Sweden contributed with organizing the festival by providing their individual materials to the event organizers. All those who worked at the event came in as volunteers from different Eritrean organization around the world. The festival was also to show that they, (Eritreans) were ready to demonstrate some degree of commitment to their various communities (in the Diaspora) and to keep intact their cultural and national identity.
Attending the festival was amongst others members of the Eritrean government, the Eritrean Ambassador to France, H.E Hana Simon, who was the guest of honor.
She was the person who officially opened on the festival ground on the 26th of July.
There were many different seminars, activities for parents, children’s playgrounds; different arts exhibitions, live music, Eritrean cousins with fresh Eritrean food, roasted coffee, Eritrean homemade beverages, fashion parade and lots of storytelling and fun.
Some of the entertainment activities were in the Tents while others were outside at the main festival ground especially for the kids.
Amongst the different seminars was one called the ‘Current Affairs’, a seminar for the Representatives of the Eritrean Government to give the Diaspora some feedbacks on what is happening back at home (in Eritrea).
Attending this seminar was the Eritrean Ambassador to France H.E Hana Simon, Mr. Yonas Mana, who is also the ‘Charge d’Affairs’ at the Eritrean Embassy in Stockholm and also responsible for the Scandinavian countries.
This seminar also gave the opportunity for Eritreans to direct their questions to the government openly. The seminar was held in their (Eritrean) dialect Tigrinya.
There were also some artists from Eritrea who joined their brothers in Stockholm for the festival. Amongst these artists were: the Cultural Troupe Asser Band from Eritrea, Yoni Habitz, Jagua Band and various Eritrean DJs. During the festival, Yonas Mahretab popularly known as ‘Minus’ grazed the event with some special family shows, kids entertainment to portraying the rich Eritrean cultural and music.
At the end of the festival, different prices were awarded to laureates, shows and a final dance that took place at the general festival ground.
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