PRESS RELEASE… PRESS RELEASE… PRESS RELEASE
1 AUGUST 2017
2nd MBOKA FESTIVAL of ARTS, CULTURE AND SPORT IN THE GAMBIA
The second Mboka Festival of Arts, Culture and Sport has been extended from a 10 day to a 14 day festival, and will take place from 6-20 January 2018 offering festival go-ers a 14-day festival of distinction and diversity that celebrates Gambian cultural heritage alongside African diasporic cultural heritage. We continue on the journey of a One World, Diaspora, Pan African experience!
Mboka will be equally exciting and stimulating in 2018 as the festival embraces the ‘new dawn’ of The Gambia that happened in January 2017 when a new President was inaugurated after 28 years.. We intend to celebrate this historic time annually with the festival showcasing and exhibiting produce from The Gambia, contributing to its creative and cultural economy.
The festival is organised by Camp Africa, Global Hands and SABLE Publications with support from our partners, ADEPT (UK), Numbi Arts (UK) and the Organisation of Women Writers in Africa (USA), Yaram Arts (UK), Harlem Book Fair (USA). Gambia Tourism Board and National Council for Arts and Culture
Highlights in 2018 include:
The festival will culminate in a Chefs Award competition and Fundraising Dinner.
SABLE Publications in partnership with the Harlem Book Fair will announce details of a new programme, ‘The Africa World Literature Festivals’. The mission of AWLF is to create, promote and sustain public and year-round African World literature and art festivals as highly-visible and desirable travel destination points.
Special Guest Artists and Speakers will be announced soon.
ANNOUNCING A COMPETITION FOR AN EMERGING GAMBIAN WRITER!
At the poetry event on 9 Jan the 3rd anniversary of the African Poetry Library SABLE LitMag announced a new competition for an emerging Gambian writer. Further details to be announced shortly.
To see highlights from 2017
https://www.facebook.com/mbokafestival/
http://conta.cc/2p8Tex7
For more information and regular updates visit: mbokafestival.org / email: [email protected]
For more information regarding AWLF contact: [email protected]
For more information on the literary festival visit : www.sablelitmag.org/kadijasesay/ideas-africa/
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
Mboka means ‘One Family’ in Wolof
Dates and Venues for 2018
Saturday 6 January – Saturday 20 Jan inclusive
Venues: Senegambia Hotel and Djeliba Hotel, Senegambia; Manduar Development Hub, Near Brikama; Independence Stadium, Bakau NCAC (Mango Tree), Fajara; Sandele Eco-Lodge, Kartong; Janjanburay
Festival Founders
The founders and co-ordinators of the Mboka Festival are three award winning organisations that operate internationally through their founders. Behind each organisation are enigmatic, productive personalities of international repute who have produced groundbreaking and inspiring programmes, events and material over the past 25 years. Each organisation supports a local charity. More details can be found on our website.
Adama Bah holds an MSc in Responsible Tourism Management and is an associate member of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism which he has been associated with since it started. Adama is the Chairman of the board of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism - West Africa which he founded and which is part of the Institute of Travel and Tourism of The Gambia. In 2004, Adama was the first person to win the award as the person who has contributed most significantly to responsible tourism in the prestigious World Responsible Tourism Award. http://www.responsibletravel.com/awards/winners/2004.htm
During this association, Adama has attended almost all the conferences organised by the Centre as a speaker. ICRT conferences started in Cape Town, South Africa in 2004 and since then have been organised in India, Canada, Oman, Ireland, Spain and the UK. The latest one was held in Cape Town in South Africa where Adama was a speaker and a judge for the first Africa Responsible Tourism Award. In The Gambia, Adama co-ordinated the University of The Gambia’s 23 scholarships to Gambians and other West Africans issued by the Commonwealth Secretariat. Through his engagement with the Travel Foundation as their Gambian Programme Manager (ended in 2013) he is well experienced on issues of tourism and community development: http://www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk/images/media/Roots_project_summary.pdf Adama serves as a member of the Advisory panel on the annual ICRT World Responsible Tourism Day at the World Travel Market in London. In 2015, at the WTM he was a speaker at the Change Makers session. He also organised and chaired events during the WRTD relating to issues concerning Africa: he organised the launch of an initiative he founded called Camp Africa and at WTM 2014 he organised an event to highlight the impacts of Ebola on tourism that was filled to capacity. For more information on Adama Bah: www.adamabah.info
Kadija George, FRSA is a literary activist, project arts manager and teacher/trainer of Sierra Leonean descent. After graduating from Birmingham University, where she majored in West African Studies, she began her working career in travel, for the global student travel company, STA Travel, becoming the manager of their flagship store in London and then their Africa Specialist. At the same time, she became a freelance journalist, specialising in Black arts, Black British literature and women’s issues. She worked for a spell on Africa Economic Digest and Nigeria’s African Concord, creating Concord Lifestyle their ‘diaspora’, supplement, as well as guest editing for various publications and founding others. She combined her two loves of travel and writing to create the SABLE Writer’s HotSpot in 1998 to take writers of the African Diaspora on field trips to dialogue with writers and arts practitioners in other parts of the world. Consequently, she has travelled extensively around Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, South East Asia and the USA. As a project and event manager she has co-ordinated several African literary projects and events in the UK, USA and Africa, organising the first SABLE Litfest in The Gambia in 2007. Kadija has received several awards for her work in the creative arts. For more information on Kadija George: http://www.sablelitmag.org/kadijasesay/
@SABLELitmag.org
Dr. Momodou Sallah (PhD, MPhil, MA, FRSA) is a Reader in Globalisation and Global Youth Work at the Social Work, Youth and Community Division, De Montfort University, UK. He is also the Chair of the Board of Directors, Global Hands, which is an NGO operating in The Gambia and UK. In June 2013, he was named a National Teaching Fellow by the UK Higher Education Academy. In November 2015, he was named the “Most Innovative Teacher” in the UK by Times Higher Education Supplement. He has more than 20 years’ experience working with young people at local, national and international levels; from being the Youth Director of Gambia Red Cross Society to a Senior Youth Worker at the Leicester City Council, UK. Momodou teaches on the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at De Montfort University, leading on the Theory and Practice of Youth Work; Theory and Practice of Community Development; and Global Youth Work modules. Dr. Sallah has contributed to numerous publications in the field of work with Black youth, young Muslims and globalisation/global youth work. His research interests include diversity, participation and globalisation especially in relation to young people. He is actively involved in advocacy and has organised ten national or international conferences during the past five years bringing academics, students, policy makers and practitioners together, to develop curriculum currency and maintain a constant dialogue between theory and practice.
1 AUGUST 2017
2nd MBOKA FESTIVAL of ARTS, CULTURE AND SPORT IN THE GAMBIA
The second Mboka Festival of Arts, Culture and Sport has been extended from a 10 day to a 14 day festival, and will take place from 6-20 January 2018 offering festival go-ers a 14-day festival of distinction and diversity that celebrates Gambian cultural heritage alongside African diasporic cultural heritage. We continue on the journey of a One World, Diaspora, Pan African experience!
Mboka will be equally exciting and stimulating in 2018 as the festival embraces the ‘new dawn’ of The Gambia that happened in January 2017 when a new President was inaugurated after 28 years.. We intend to celebrate this historic time annually with the festival showcasing and exhibiting produce from The Gambia, contributing to its creative and cultural economy.
The festival is organised by Camp Africa, Global Hands and SABLE Publications with support from our partners, ADEPT (UK), Numbi Arts (UK) and the Organisation of Women Writers in Africa (USA), Yaram Arts (UK), Harlem Book Fair (USA). Gambia Tourism Board and National Council for Arts and Culture
Highlights in 2018 include:
- Ninkinanka Gambia River Cruise
- Kankurang (Masquerade) Festival in Janjanburay
- Responsible Tourism Seminar on 'Tourism and the UN Sustainable Development Goals’ 2030
- Banjul2Dakar-Run4Peace - A Presidential Fun Run For Peace in Africa
- Ecotourism Excursions
- an International Book Fair and Art Fair
- “Good Market” Food Fair
- Gambian Cultural Activities
- Oware Tournament
- Literary Festival
- Drama
- Storytelling
- Wrestling Matches
- Yoga and Meditation
The festival will culminate in a Chefs Award competition and Fundraising Dinner.
SABLE Publications in partnership with the Harlem Book Fair will announce details of a new programme, ‘The Africa World Literature Festivals’. The mission of AWLF is to create, promote and sustain public and year-round African World literature and art festivals as highly-visible and desirable travel destination points.
Special Guest Artists and Speakers will be announced soon.
ANNOUNCING A COMPETITION FOR AN EMERGING GAMBIAN WRITER!
At the poetry event on 9 Jan the 3rd anniversary of the African Poetry Library SABLE LitMag announced a new competition for an emerging Gambian writer. Further details to be announced shortly.
To see highlights from 2017
https://www.facebook.com/mbokafestival/
http://conta.cc/2p8Tex7
For more information and regular updates visit: mbokafestival.org / email: [email protected]
For more information regarding AWLF contact: [email protected]
For more information on the literary festival visit : www.sablelitmag.org/kadijasesay/ideas-africa/
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
Mboka means ‘One Family’ in Wolof
Dates and Venues for 2018
Saturday 6 January – Saturday 20 Jan inclusive
Venues: Senegambia Hotel and Djeliba Hotel, Senegambia; Manduar Development Hub, Near Brikama; Independence Stadium, Bakau NCAC (Mango Tree), Fajara; Sandele Eco-Lodge, Kartong; Janjanburay
Festival Founders
The founders and co-ordinators of the Mboka Festival are three award winning organisations that operate internationally through their founders. Behind each organisation are enigmatic, productive personalities of international repute who have produced groundbreaking and inspiring programmes, events and material over the past 25 years. Each organisation supports a local charity. More details can be found on our website.
Adama Bah holds an MSc in Responsible Tourism Management and is an associate member of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism which he has been associated with since it started. Adama is the Chairman of the board of the International Centre for Responsible Tourism - West Africa which he founded and which is part of the Institute of Travel and Tourism of The Gambia. In 2004, Adama was the first person to win the award as the person who has contributed most significantly to responsible tourism in the prestigious World Responsible Tourism Award. http://www.responsibletravel.com/awards/winners/2004.htm
During this association, Adama has attended almost all the conferences organised by the Centre as a speaker. ICRT conferences started in Cape Town, South Africa in 2004 and since then have been organised in India, Canada, Oman, Ireland, Spain and the UK. The latest one was held in Cape Town in South Africa where Adama was a speaker and a judge for the first Africa Responsible Tourism Award. In The Gambia, Adama co-ordinated the University of The Gambia’s 23 scholarships to Gambians and other West Africans issued by the Commonwealth Secretariat. Through his engagement with the Travel Foundation as their Gambian Programme Manager (ended in 2013) he is well experienced on issues of tourism and community development: http://www.thetravelfoundation.org.uk/images/media/Roots_project_summary.pdf Adama serves as a member of the Advisory panel on the annual ICRT World Responsible Tourism Day at the World Travel Market in London. In 2015, at the WTM he was a speaker at the Change Makers session. He also organised and chaired events during the WRTD relating to issues concerning Africa: he organised the launch of an initiative he founded called Camp Africa and at WTM 2014 he organised an event to highlight the impacts of Ebola on tourism that was filled to capacity. For more information on Adama Bah: www.adamabah.info
Kadija George, FRSA is a literary activist, project arts manager and teacher/trainer of Sierra Leonean descent. After graduating from Birmingham University, where she majored in West African Studies, she began her working career in travel, for the global student travel company, STA Travel, becoming the manager of their flagship store in London and then their Africa Specialist. At the same time, she became a freelance journalist, specialising in Black arts, Black British literature and women’s issues. She worked for a spell on Africa Economic Digest and Nigeria’s African Concord, creating Concord Lifestyle their ‘diaspora’, supplement, as well as guest editing for various publications and founding others. She combined her two loves of travel and writing to create the SABLE Writer’s HotSpot in 1998 to take writers of the African Diaspora on field trips to dialogue with writers and arts practitioners in other parts of the world. Consequently, she has travelled extensively around Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, South East Asia and the USA. As a project and event manager she has co-ordinated several African literary projects and events in the UK, USA and Africa, organising the first SABLE Litfest in The Gambia in 2007. Kadija has received several awards for her work in the creative arts. For more information on Kadija George: http://www.sablelitmag.org/kadijasesay/
@SABLELitmag.org
Dr. Momodou Sallah (PhD, MPhil, MA, FRSA) is a Reader in Globalisation and Global Youth Work at the Social Work, Youth and Community Division, De Montfort University, UK. He is also the Chair of the Board of Directors, Global Hands, which is an NGO operating in The Gambia and UK. In June 2013, he was named a National Teaching Fellow by the UK Higher Education Academy. In November 2015, he was named the “Most Innovative Teacher” in the UK by Times Higher Education Supplement. He has more than 20 years’ experience working with young people at local, national and international levels; from being the Youth Director of Gambia Red Cross Society to a Senior Youth Worker at the Leicester City Council, UK. Momodou teaches on the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at De Montfort University, leading on the Theory and Practice of Youth Work; Theory and Practice of Community Development; and Global Youth Work modules. Dr. Sallah has contributed to numerous publications in the field of work with Black youth, young Muslims and globalisation/global youth work. His research interests include diversity, participation and globalisation especially in relation to young people. He is actively involved in advocacy and has organised ten national or international conferences during the past five years bringing academics, students, policy makers and practitioners together, to develop curriculum currency and maintain a constant dialogue between theory and practice.
