On July 20, we celebrated the Solidarity Festival for Mozanbique in Arrasate with the spectacular performance of the Ugandan music and dance group “Ugandan Sticks” and the collaboration of TTakun txalaparta elkartea from Arrasate and Jaiki elkartea from Aretxabaleta. Buy your ticket here!
Uganda STICKS, dancing with the Soul
They dance describing the land, customs, faith, joy, pain, beauty and burst with joy with Rwandan drums and rhythms. Contemporary, African, tribal, they dance in slow motion or to crazy beats. The show that the Sticks do in Uganda is a pure show, purely African, which has been a great success in all the places where they have performed. Seven young people raised in the Kampala orphanage have performed hundreds of performances in Euskal Herria and Spain.
Ttakun, the intercultural bridge
According to the txalapartaris of Ttakun, the txalaparta serves as a bridge between cultures and they come to prove it.
JAIKI, language of feelings
Jaiki members will use body language to communicate stories, emotions and feelings.
Strengthen the commitment of the residents of Arrasate and Debagoiena
The objective of the festival is to reinforce the commitment of the residents of Arrasate and Debagoiena with the Mozambican cooperation program in which Harreman and Mundukide have been collaborating for more than twenty years.
The “Marrupa” program collaborates with the peasants of the two northern provinces of Mozambique with the aim of ensuring that their work in the fields gives them enough income to improve their living conditions.
Twenty years ago the country was totally destroyed and although during these twenty years there have been visible improvements in infrastructure, health, education and economic activity, the current situation continues to be highly precarious.
For example, with regard to peasant agriculture, if twenty years ago, in the district of Marrupa there were not even ten peasants who had a harvest worth more than €200, now there are a few hundred who get said value. If twenty years ago not a quarter of the peasant families had a bicycle, now they are the majority and quite a few even manage to have small motorcycles.
Creating innovative methodologies that are based on taking advantage of local skills and knowledge
Twenty years ago the program began by opening rural highways, giving credit to a hundred peasant families and teaching irrigation techniques to another twenty-five. Today, more than 10,000 families participate in the program that, in addition to traditional subsistence crops, work with the techniques introduced by the program, another 2,000 hectares of which they achieve an extra income of more than 1 million euros.
To this end, over the years the program has managed to create innovative methodologies based on taking advantage of local skills and knowledge, complemented when necessary with what the cooperators can contribute.
The program has a clear strategy, based on creating a variety of new opportunities so that each family can dedicate itself to the crop that best suits their specific circumstances, and can do it profitably, that is, achieving with their work some income sufficient for a decent life.
Much remains to be done and all support is welcome
But there’s still a lot to do. There are still a majority of families that do not participate in the new techniques and crops; and although a few manage to have an annual income equivalent to receiving the minimum wage (€60/month), the vast majority barely manage to achieve a quarter of that value.
If we want a more stable world, with fewer surprises, fewer conflicts and fewer fights, it is desirable and desirable to minimize these inequalities.
For all these reasons, it is necessary to continue working. And for this, the support of the residents of Debagoiena is necessary. Without this support, the program would not have been able to have the consistency or the flexibility that it has had in these twenty years. It is the complementarity of solidarity contributions and subsidies that allows the program to have enough muscle and flexibility. Both things totally necessary to achieve effective results.
For all this, thank you and we hope to continue counting on your support.
