Tumaini (‘hope’ in Swahili) Festival is a unique refugee-led celebration of music, culture and solidarity in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi. Founded by Tresor Mpauni, who lived in the camp after being forced to leave the Democratic Republic of Congo, it uses arts and culture to build connections between refugees and the host community in Malawi.
Each year it welcomes musicians and artists from all over Africa, and hosts guests from all over the world within the camp; providing a space to celebrate the artistic skills and organisational talents of an increasingly marginalised refugee community,
Against considerable odds, they’ve created the largest festival in Malawi with over 50,000 people attending and over 115 artists performing in 2023, and is the refugee camp’s largest source of commercial income.
Self-organised refugee initiatives like Tumaini allow people seeking refuge to re-define how they see themselves, and creates an opportunity for self-sufficiency in a community that is so often stripped of autonomy.
Recently, thousands of people were arrested and sent back to the camp under Malawi’s encampment policy, which denies refugees the right to live and work outside the camp. But as Tresor Mpauni observes:
‘Refugees don’t just carry their luggage when they are going looking for safety. They carry so much in their heads and in their being. People travel with dreams, with ideas, with experience, with knowledge that could benefit any space that hosts them.’
Presented by Ben Arogundade and produced by Bairbre Flood.
First broadcast on BBC World Service, The Documentary on 5th March 2024.
More info about Tumaini and follow them here for updates. The Nation article here and Dzaleka Online.
Includes music by Maggie Kadrum, Jay Extra, Code Sangala and Peter Mawanga.
Transcript:
00:00 Ben: Tumaini (‘hope’ in Swahili) is a unique music and arts festival in Dzaleka Refugee Camp, Malawi.
Tresor: This festival comes to bring joy and relieve the stress and help people see life in a more positive and lighter way.
Ben: It provides a space to celebrate the artistic skills and organisational talents of an increasingly marginalised refugee community, helping to change the narrative around how refugees are portrayed
Japhet: It has created a self-sufficiency to the people because they are removing that mentality of seeing themselves labelled as refugees – and also having a sense of being human, you know, equal than other people.
Ben: Against considerable odds, they’ve created the largest festival in Malawi with over 50,000 people attending and over 115 artists performing in 2023.
Mangala: Ok, so now there’s a poet from DRC, another one from Malawi, another from Rwanda and they’re creating art that can change the world, if the world can catch up to it and listen you know – bridge these colonial borders and become one.
01:20 Welcome to The Documentary from the BBC World Service, with me, Ben Arogundade.
01:30 MUSIC
01:35 Dzaleka camp was built in 1994 in Dowa, about an hour from Lilongwe the capital of Malawi, to house thousands of people escaping violence in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and smaller communities of people seeking refuge from Ethiopia and Somalia.
01:45 Tresor: Our goal is to promote and support the cultural, social and economic inclusion of refugees in Malawi, using arts and culture as a tool.
01:55 Ben: Tresor Mpauni, originally from the DRC, began organising Tumaini back in 2014 while he was living in Dzaleka.
02:00 Tresor: We thought it’d be once off, you know, just to bring something different to the refugee camp – to give the people from outside the camp an opportunity to come in the camp and celebrate life and humanity together.
When we started the festival our only objective was to promote peaceful coexistence between refugees and the host community so we saw it in that aspect of social cohesion between communities. But after some years we also realised it had an economic impact on the community with people staying with families in the camp, buying products and goods that are made in the camp – and everyone benefits from the festival economically.
02:50 MUSIC (Maggie Kadrum)
02:50 Ben: It’s only for three days, but Tumaini Festival is the camps primary source of commercial income and every year it helps the community to earn more than $150,000.
Amani: My name is Amani Yao Tresor and for this year at Tumaini I’m working as a security manager.
Ben: Amani Tresor is one of fifty people from Dzaleka who volunteer on the production team. Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, he’s been working for Tumaini since first coming to Dzaleka six years ago:
03:10 Amani: To have festivals like Tumaini I can take it in two kinds. First it’s based in the camp so it’s the biggest festival happening in a refugee camp. It’s assisting refugees to relax somehow, because here we don’t have anything relaxing – nothing at all, we just have this event.
Ben: Amani trained as a web designer with a tech training hub set up by Burundian refugee Remy Gakwaya in Dzaleka.
Amani: Apart from that it’s also a learning platform and a connectivity platform. So people coming from different backgrounds and different areas with different skills. So if you’re willing to learn you’ll learn from them. Also if you’re looking for connections. Like last year I told someone I was a web designer and this year I’m developing a website for that person. So it’s a connectivity platform where we expose everyone’s talents. That’s why I like Tumaini.
04:20 MUSIC
Ben: Every year Tumaini operates a Homestay Program where people can apply online, and pay to stay with host families. The guests share meals and sleep at the host family’s home, and often livelong connections are formed. This year 33 guests from Germany, France, the US, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Iceland and Ireland – and from Malawi – stayed in the camp:
It’s Schaddy Kabila’s fourth year managing the Homestay Programme:
04:40 Schaddy Kabila: My name is Schaddy Kabila, I’m a refugee from Congo and I manage the Homestay Programme which is a unique programme which allows guests to understand and learn about refugees, learn about their cultures and about life in the camp, and life conditions for refugees. People have some misunderstandings, some misconceptions about refugees but this unique programme gives people a good picture to understand.
Schaddy: And through the festival, through the Homestay Programme I get to know people I didn’t know and I learn a lot.
It’s also opened for me opportunities where I work at different festivals in Malawi – I’ve worked in all the biggest festivals in Malawi. And I talk to people and they ‘eh you’re a refugee, how did you get here? How did you get this opportunity?’ – so all of this is through Tumaini.
MUSIC
Ben: During the festival there are two stages with one main stage set up similar to any large festival with professional sound and lighting. This is one of the main costs of the festival – as are some of the acts who play here. Other acts don’t charge a fee. Funding comes from sponsors including BMW, the German Embassy and the Segal Family Foundation, from several local companies and from fundraising.
It’s a free festival so that everyone can attend. Visitors come from South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania and from all over Malawi.
06:00 Ben: Kubalito from Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi, has been coming to Tumaini for several years:
06:05 Kubalito: It brings on some sense of unity. And it’s actually cool to meet new people, experience different things, taste new food, stuff like that.
06:10 Nate: My name is Nate, I’m from Ethiopia. Right now I’m maybe here five months.
It’s a nice day and we are chilling good, it’s very nice. Malawi we are chilling, Rwanda, Ethiopia, all together we are chilling. People are enjoying one year one time, that’s why there’s a lot of people here I’m sure.
06:20 Sade: My name is Sade from Dzaleka, Malawi. This is one thing that happens once a year and gets people from the neighbouring community and from different places to come see the wonders that are happening in Dzaleka camp from the refugees.
7:15 Ben: Dzaleka is like a small town with houses, shops, restaurants, hairdressers, churches and bars. Originally built for up to 12,000, it now has over 52,000 people who are given less than $5 a month through the World Food Programme. Almost half of the camp’s residents are children.
Life in the camp is difficult, there are issues with sanitation, water, education and housing. But more than all these problems – is the realisation they are being given no autonomy over their lives.
The word ‘Dzaleka’ means ‘I will never try again’ in Chichewa – a reference to the former prison site on which the camp is built.
7:45 French/English interview w/ Dzaleka resident: [French] – interpretor: He says the festival motivates people and destress people and that is amazing because it’s making people have memorable memories for the future cause here it’s very stressful so once they’re seeing this kind of event it sometimes de-stress them so that’s why he likes the festival very much.
[French] – interpretor: He said he likes the fact that people from different countries come here cause it makes them interact with different people from different societies
And it also makes them happy because they don’t think they’re alone because they are refugees – they think that somewhere they know us.
08:30 MUSIC
08:40 Mangala: I’m Mangala known as Lord Strider when I’m stepping on stages. I’m an African man from Asanya, South Africa. It’s my first time here at Tumaini and I’m overwhelmed by so many things. It’s beautiful that’s number one, the story about it being a refugee camp and it being now the biggest festival in Malawi. It’s just mind-blowing how different Africans can come together, we can create so much. Borders are more mental, they don’t live in our hearts. When we are together we are together as a people, and I really appreciate that.
Here I came mostly as a poet and I’m grateful cause I got to be around fourteen year old children and they are immensely powerful, immensely emotive, immensely graphic in their storytelling and yet grounded. They’ve been through so much yet they are so grounded – and they have a story and that story can heal us. And just the world at large can be healed by more people coming in and listening and investing here – because there’s so much beauty here, yeah.
09:40 MUSIC
09:40 Ben: There are three days of cultural events, film screenings, poetry, theatre and traditional dance performances. Workshops and panel discussions on activism, refugee rights and community building, children’s activities and poetry and art classes. And some of Africa’s best performers including Zeze Kingston, Tay Grin, Kamuzu Barracks, Maggie Kadrum, Peter Mawanga, Suffix, Eli Nduchi – and Code Sangala:
MUSIC (Code Sangala)
10:00 Code Sangala: The name is Code Sangala. I do what I like to call Kagoule music – I draw my inspiration from traditional elements of Malawian culture.
Music has an ability to bring people together. I think that the energy is so great and the fact that it’s like a melting pot- you have people coming from all walks of life and just coming together and understanding the universal language we call music.
So there’s always great energy around here and I get inspired by it.
MUSIC (Code Sangala)
11:10 Ben: Many of the performers are also from Dzaleka– including young Afro pop musician Jay Extra, whose parents are from Burundi, who performed on the main stage this year:
11:20 Jay Extra: It feels good cause the audience is from different countries so it’s actually an experience where I feel like I’m performing to more than five countries at one time so it feels good, yeah.
Ben: Jay wants to be a full time professional musician, and has released several tracks on Youtube, including Mfana Wa Ku Malawi which was shot in Dzaleka:
Jay Extra: When we try to put some messages into music, put some art and other things into music – music is a great weapon that can actually change the world.
MUSIC (Jay Extra)
Jay Extra: It’s very important that this is a refugee camp. People flew away from their countries for different problems so having a festival like this it makes them relieve their stresses, their traumas, and they try to forget what they’ve been through. So coming together, people from different nationalities and Malawians coming here and celebrate this day together.
It brings union among people, it makes people feel better. It makes people feel like they are among the world.
MUSIC (Jay Extra)
Ben: This is The Documentary from the BBC World Service.
MUSIC (Jay Extra)
13:25 Ben: Malawi has an encampment policy towards people seeking refuge. Refugees are denied access to any services outside the camp – including education, housing, and jobs, they are denied freedom of movement, the right to own property and no matter how long they live in Malawi – even if born here – cannot gain citizenship.
Ben: Tresor Mapauni, the founder of Tumaini Festival again:
13:50 Tresor: I believe without that encampment policy Malawi could benefit a lot from refugees. Because refugees do not just travel with their luggage going to look for safety – actually what they can take with them is very little. But they carry so much in their head and in their being. It’s people that travel with dreams, with ideas, with experiences, with knowledges, with cultures, and new ways of doing things that could benefit any space that hosts them.
14:25 Ben: In 2023 the Malawian government forced thousands of people back into Dzaleka – under their Encampment policy which by law mandates that all refugees in Malawi can only live inside the camp.
14:40: Tresor: After being for many years in the camp, some refugees start finding their way out of the camp to try to run small businesses in rural and urban areas of Malawi and they became self-reliant. But unfortunately this year the government decided to enforce the Encampment Policy. And refugees were forced back to the camp. And that has affected over 2,000 refugees – they had to lose their businesses and come back and start from zero again.
15:30 Ben: Residents – including children – were taken to Maula prison, a maximum security prison in Lilongwe – before being forcibly relocated to the camp. Inua Advocacy, an organisation advocating for refugee rights in Malawi submitted a report to the International Criminal Court of 37 cases of allegations of abuse carried out during these relocations.
The Malawian government have stated that if there were any violations of people’s rights this was not sanctioned by the government, and say ‘the alleged abuse, if at all, should be reported and investigated as individual cases and not prima facie.’
They insist that they are merely enforcing that law and that people were given 15 days notice to relocate voluntarily before they were forcibly moved.
They also argue the encampment policy is necessary for security reasons and to prevent refugees engaging in commercial activities outside the camp. And they plan to close Dzaleka and build a new camp in Chitipa District – the most isolated northerly district in Malawi.
MUSIC (Maggie Kadrum)
Maggie Kadrum: The people who are staying there, some lose hope in life. While there’s a lot of great potential in that space.
Ben: Afro jazz musician from Malawi, Maggie Kadrum.
16:25 Maggie Kadrum: And you don’t have to kill somebody’s future because they want to contribute something. We have stayed with these people and some of them we’ve stayed with them in the communities – we interact.
MUSIC (Maggie Kadrum)
Maggie Kadrum: I have a song, one of the songs on the album I’ve done it with a refugee and I’ve stayed with that person and I’ve gotten to know them. So if we give them a chance we’d get to know what a beautiful people they are and also what contribution they can bring to the country because there’s great talent and it’s inspiring to us as Malawian artists we see how much potential, how much energy they put in their work.
MUSIC
18:10 Peter Mawanga: My name is Peter Mawanga, usually known as Mawanga. For me I took the chance to go and perform because I wanted to showcase the amazing talent that I had on the song called Nkani that I did with a couple of refugees from the camp. So it was a huge platform to show what these guys had within the camp. And that got me motivated to do more.
MUSIC (Peter Mawanga)
Peter Mawanga: A number of refugees had settled in Malawi and we look at them as Malawians – they’ve intermarried into the culture of Malawi and just to pick them up and send them back to the camp – I felt like there could’ve been another way of doing it.
MUSIC (Peter Mawanga)
19:20 Japhet: My name is Japhet and I’m the Festival Coordinator.
19:25 Ben: Japhet from Rwanda, lives in Dzaleka. He recently qualified as a life coach and has volunteered with Tumaini for four years after previously working as programme coordinator with a Jesuit learning programme in Dzaleka:
19:45 Japhet: We have a lot of people who like music, who like art, but they don’t have that access because going outside the camp – first they need to ask for permission they cannot just go. And second, the festivals that are happening outside the camp they need to pay and it’s a lot of money. So having now a free festival – the only free festival in Malawi – that gives access to the refugees, makes them feel alive. It also gives them an opportunity to meet new people and also for the artists from the camp it’s a platform for them to perform, show their talents.
It has also created a self-sufficiency to the people because they are removing that mentality of seeing themselves labelled as refugees. And also having a sense of being human, you know, equal than other people.
Professionally I’m a life coach so when I see people happy, moving forward with their life – that is my happiness.
21:00 MUSIC (Maggie Kadrum)
Ben: Founder of Tumaini, Tresor Mpauni is optimistic about the future:
21:05 Tresor: Next year is our tenth anniversary so it’s been ten years of this festival being alive. With all the challenges refugees are facing, with all the challenges of funding going to refugee-led organisations we managed to be where we are.
The dream is to share this hope in many other countries that have refugee camps. Art is a very powerful tool for refugee advocacy, in helping amplify refugee voices, in changing the perception of people – the negative perception people have towards refugees. We’ve seen that in Malawi through Tumaini Festival
After ten years I think we need now to replicate it in other countries, in other refugee camps around the world.
22:35 MUSIC
Ben: As Tumaini Festival heads into its tenth year as a unique celebration of music, culture and solidarity, it continues to challenge perceptions of refugees. Self-organised refugee initiatives like Tumaini allow people seeking refuge to re-define how they’re seen – and how they see themselves.
There are many tangible benefits of Tumaini, but perhaps one of the least measurable is that of how much it contributes to the people of Dzaleka’s sense of empowerment, potential and despite all the odds – hope.
I’m Ben Arogundade and you’ve been listening to The Documentary from the BBC World Service. Produced by Bairbre Flood.
22:55 MUSIC
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