Celebrating African unity on Africa Day

Department of Arts and Culture, 22 May 2009,South Africa

The Department of Arts and Culture is commemorating Africa Day Celebrations 2009 through a series of arts and culture activities.

The theme of this year’s Africa Day commemoration is “Celebrating Africa through education and culture.” Our participation in the Africa Day celebrations event is to harness and foster social cohesion and justice, to promote regional and continental co-operation, to fight xenophobia and to promote human solidarity. This year’s celebrations are also part of a series of commemorative events and cultural projects in 2009 earmarked as a launch pad for the FIFA Confederation Cup cultural programme.

The Minister of Arts and Culture, Ms Lulu Xingwana will be in attendance. Minister Xingwana says that: “Africa Day is a very special event on our national and continental calendar since it provides an opportunity for us to pay tribute to previous generations who fought for Africa unity and who took the first concrete steps towards the unification of Africa. On this day we celebrate the birth of the OAU on the 25th May, 1963.”

The activities planned include:

“Africa and its children celebrate the Confederations Cup and the 2010 FIFA World Cup” – an event for children held at the Union Buildings in Pretoria on 23 May 2009
- Planned activities for this event include soccer matches, performances by the Gang’be Brass Band from Benin and an interactive corner where children will be face-painted with flags of nations participating in the Confederations Cup. Children will also paint parts of a puzzle that when pieced together represents a map of Africa.
The Africa Day concert held in conjunction with the City of Johannesburg at the Mary Fitzgerald Square on the evening of 23 May.
The Africa Day Concert features Asa from Nigeria, Yuri from Angola, Gang’Be from Benin, South Africa’s Soweto Gospel Choir, Gang of Instrumentals and the Parlotones. Attendance of this concert is free of charge.
a thanksgiving and celebratory rendition of Handel’s Messiah at Regina Mundi in Soweto, Johannesburg on 24 May 2009

and a symposium to be held in partnership with the NEPAD secretariat entitled “Unifying Africa through education and culture” at the African Cultural Museum in Pretoria on 25 May at 10:00. The symposium will be addressed by the Minister of Arts and Culture. African government officials, intellectuals and representatives of civil society will debate the role of education and culture in African development.

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