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Gidi Culture Festival: Represent Your Community
BellaNaija partners with the organizers of Gidi Culture Festival. So, what exactly is Gidi Culture Festival? It is a movement which serves to provoke insightful thoughts, towards the motivated and empowered African youth. It is the voice for the youth, by the youth. The African society seems to have failed the youth; unemployment ravages its populace, to the extent that the will to matter eludes the average citizen. Our society in its acknowledgement of social strata has barricaded the common man from the luxuries of quality, accessible entertainment in a safe environment. The Gidi Culture Festival bring this to an end and has been noted for its novel ideas in giving back to the community with its Beach Sweeps and Dreams project. This 8-part series hopes to send a meaningful discourse among young people today.
Charity begins at home they say. This is our proclamation as a group that is inspired to make a difference in our community; we are the GCF Gang!
The ills in our society cannot be denied, as we live life every day it is easy to see what shouldn’t be, our eyes capture the odds in such an effortless manner and the same is engraved in our minds.
Therefore a lake of criticism stills within us sometimes, even with a degree of resentment toward change advocates. Remember the Occupy Nigeria scenario, while some of our country men toiled under the sun and at the top of their voices, chanting to the Nigeria of their dreams and what it should be, a majority of observers thought in their hearts, as they displayed by their actions, that it was an exercise in futility. It is never for nought – the actions we take to make a change. Sometimes the change we desire will come in phases. It is the little efforts that matter the most.
I put this to you today, what impact have you made in your community?
We are strong advocates of youth development and community building, and we have set out to action our acclaimed values. We strongly believe that youth empowerment and a fortified community is principal to the development of any society. We understand that a society must invest in its youth in order to position itself for advancement tomorrow, and that our environment has great impact on the lives of its inhabitants. It is with this superior understanding that we have started a movement that is leading up to our upcoming Beach Festival.
The first action on the Road to Gidi Culture Festival kicked off with a free concert at the Lagos State NYSC Camp in November last year. The show provided unknown artistes such as Uchman an opportunity to showcase their music to a crowd of over 3000 people, as well as sharing a stage with upcoming acts such as Nedu, Flowsick, Blink, Tesh Carter and Sammy. The exposure that these young artists got from this initiative has helped in fostering their careers, and has created more visibility for them in the music and entertainment space.
Chin Okeke, Founder of Eclipse Live made a statement at this event, ‘We are looking forward to organising a similar concert after the success that we had last year.” His words have implied that continuity is in view. It is key that good causes be upheld, it is not enough to do good once, especially if it would potentially impact positively.
Well it is one thing to organize a concert for the sole reason of gathering the youth and sensitizing them toward their responsibilities to their community, while moving to the beats, but yet another to get your hands dirty in service to the community. GCF rep your community initiative has truly taken it all to another level. It has never been seen that a group of young Nigerian would put together a Beach Clean exercise, where they serve as primary volunteers. Talk about selflessness.
On Saturday the 28th of December 2014, The Gidi Culture Festival team and some volunteers participated in a novel movement, by clearing out litter and debris at Elegushi Beach in Lagos. The beach was in very bad condition following visits from Christmas holiday makers but at the end of the exercise, it became a pleasure to behold again. The event took place on the last Saturday in the month of December in 2013, thereby aligning with the Lagos State Government’s call to a clean and safe environment and highlighting the importance of the environmental sanitation.
“Elegushi beach is an integral part of our local community and organising the sweep is one way of encouraging visitors and local residents to take ownership of the beach and keep the beach superior and clean during visits” said Chin Okeke, Founder of Eclipse Live.
You can allow the unscrupulousness that you find around you desensitize you and take you to a place of complacency, or you can have it become an atom of inspiration and determination towards actions that could make lasting changes. It is important that community building initiatives such as these are imbibed by the African youth. We all can make a difference. This is a call to you, ‘Rep Your Community’.
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For more information visit: www.gidiculturefestival.com | www.facebook.com/
