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Diversity festival is back

28/ 6/2007

The Festival of Diversity is back again this year and organisers plan to kick start the event with a big launch party in Oldham town centre.

The four-week festival, which celebrates different cultures and the diversity of Oldham communities, will start with 'A Place For Everyone' on 7 July where five separate zones will occupy different parts of Oldham town centre exhibiting just how dynamic the diversity of the borough really is.

The five zones will include the youth/sport zone, the health and physical activity zone, children and family zone, information and the green zone.

There will also be a community stage featuring performances from some of the boroughs most talented music and dance groups including Nyrta Jyoti, Eastern Promise, Prairie Dogs G2G, 'DR', and Fresh Breakers.

Other events to look out for includes Ubuntu, a music project in which six community groups have worked on a piece of music based on the South African philosophy of Ubuntu, which considers that individuals are nothing without other individuals.

Get Together (One World of Folk) is a poetry project which brings schools from Saddleworth and Werneth to share poems and illustration workshops. Fourteen primary schools have been involved in creating work on the theme of diversity. The aim of this project is to bring together children from different parts of town.

The Garden of Shared Difference project has seen community groups and school children from across the borough working with artists from Leaf arts.

Each group has been creating a special part of the garden that represents an aspect of their culture which will be displayed in planters around the town centre.

This year the Oldham mela will feature as part of the festival. The mela will take place on 22 July. Organisers expect around 10,000 people to attend. There will be lots to do all day with international artists performing on stage, fun fair, a range of stalls and plenty of food. The event will be covered for television by ZEE TV who are also official promoters of the event.

For more information about the festival visit www.festivalofdiversityoldham.co.uk or contact Richard Grossick on 0161 624 1731.