EAC’s 5th edition of Arts and Cultural Festival ends on high note

Bujumbura, Burundi | Xinhua | The 5th Edition of the East African Community (EAC) Arts and Cultural Festival ended on a high note on Friday evening in the Burundian capital Bujumbura with different cultural performances from the bloc’s member states, the EAC said in a statement on Saturday.

The statement said the seven-day festival attracted more than 2,000 participants from the EAC’s seven member states of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Uganda.

The participants included performing artists, exhibitors, culture professionals and academicians, students, administrators, as well as civil society organizations, said the statement.

The festival featured a symposium of culture professionals and researchers to dialogue on selected sub-themes including adopting new regional languages in the EAC and the role of modern technologies in advancing arts and cultural expression.

Other themes were indigenous knowledge and traditional medicine, arts, industry and tourism, youth participation and employment and research, innovation and investment in arts and culture, said the statement.

Irene Isaka, the EAC secretariat director of social services, said the goal of the festival was to bring east Africans together to interact and share their common cultural heritage through art and culture in order to foster social cohesion and unity amongst the people of the region.