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Celebration of culture at African Challenge Scotland’s MultiCultural Music Festival

The African Challenge Scotland ‘Multi-Cultural Music Festival’ took place on the 24th August 2019 at the Springburn Community Village, in Springburn Park, Glasgow.

The summer event was a celebration of cultures with various exciting displays and entertainment taking place throughout the day. There was live music, performances, exhibitions, community stalls, African food and fun activities for children and young people.

The event created opportunities for attendees to celebrate cultural diversity whilst strengthening community links. The event encouraged cultural expression through various types of performances, including live cultural music. The event was a great success and well attended by the North Glasgow community and beyond.

“The great and amazing thing about being involved with African Challenge Scotland’s Multi-Cultural Music Festival is the opportunity to help build a community, foster a sense of pride within a community, and engage a community,” said Adelaide Williams, African Challenge Scotland Board member.

“The Multi-Cultural Music Festival is vital in creating “creative space” for cultural energy, while celebrating inclusion and diversity in North Glasgow,” said Leila Traore, African Challenge Scotland Youth Ambassador

Ronier Deumeni, Founder of African Challenge Scotland said: “Huge thanks to ng homes, ng2, Glasgow City Council and all the partner organisations, volunteers and participants for making the day a great success.”

ng homes Chairperson, John Thorburn said: “We are once again proud to support this event and encourage cultural inclusion in North Glasgow. We are delighted to see so many people from the community and beyond come together to celebrate at this wonderful multi-cultural event. Well done to everyone involved and who participated in such a fantastic event!”

Summer Camp

ng homes runs a four week Summer Camp programme during July, and has done annually since 2015. The camp is designed to give local children something to do during the summer holidays and help out parents who may struggle during this time. This year the Summer Camp was again organised by ng homes’ Regeneration department and included input from all current projects including; Climate Challenge Fund, Build Bridge Bond, Sports Legacy and Link Up.

Traditionally run at Keppoch Campus in Possilpark, 2019 saw an additional camp run in partnership with Active Schools, at Springburn Academy. Both camps lasted for 2 days, and covered a wide range of events from DJ workshops to arts and crafts alongside favourite sports, with something for every child to enjoy.

Over 100 children across 5 local Primary Schools signed up to attend Summer Camp this year, and over the course of the four weeks there were 47 children on average attending the Keppoch site per day, and 27 attending Springburn. The latter was particularly pleasing since there had never been a camp run in this area before.

The Summer Camps were aimed at primary school ages, and each camp had a range of children from P1-P7. While Keppoch Camp divided its children into three groups dependant on age (5-6, 6-9, 10+), the Springburn Camp kept the ages together, splitting according to activity if smaller groups were required.

ng homes worked with a variety of partner organisations in delivering the various activities, including: Utd Sports, HiBallsLow, Active Schools, Utter Studios who provided DJ workshops, British Red Cross who provided First Aid Awareness and Allan Glens RFC who provided rugby sessions. So a big thank you goes out to all the organisations and individuals who supported the Summer Camp programme. Feedback from this year’s Summer Camp was overall highly positive with many children commenting that they enjoyed the different activities and getting to meet other people.

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