Projects

Ashaan Baladi

The theme of Ashaan Baladi is peace and reconciliation among the people of South Sudan. Every Sunday we have live performances at the Orupaap Cultural Foundation stage in Juba. The concerts begin at 4pm and run until 7pm. Young artists are invited to perform music and dance and there are also drama performances. The concerts are free and open to everyone.

There are also special programs for children.

Idea and Objectives

The idea of “Ashaan Baladi” was developed by the Orupaap Cultural Foundation which has organized and conducted many festivals including the festival “Peace through Music”.

After the traumatizing events of 2016 many people in Juba felt threatened and suffered psychological torture and displacement, many were forced to flee to neighboring countries. Orupaap cultural Foundation initiated the Ashaan Baladi cultural musical evening performances to boost the morale of those who remained in Juba town with the participation of many young people, upcoming musicians and many other South Sudanese artists and singers. The participants did their best to reduce the sense of fear and used music as part of the healing process to bring hope to the citizens of Juba.

The program started in August 2016 and was organized at Youth Centre in Hai Neem by the Orupaap Cultural Foundation. It was funded by Orupaap with the help of friends but was forced to stop after running for 6 months it was forced to close down through lack of funding.

The program resumed again on the 7th of February 2017 when Orupaap managed to organized a series of nine concerts at the youth center in Hai Neem with the support of the Goethe Institute Addis Ababa through the Germany embassy in Juba, South Sudan. In the second half of 2017 the program received more support from the Swiss Agency for Development Co-operation and a further nine concerts were organized at Hai Neem from the 2nd of October until the 10th of December 2017 which made it possible for Orupaap to continue with this important program.

The concerts

The concerts hosted performances of different cultural groups, singers, dancers and comedians which reached an audience of more than 3000 people, both young people and the elders, with around 200 artists and musicians taking part.

This is exactly what this program was aiming at, to bring together the sons and daughters of one nation and unite them through music, stories and poems.

We would like to voice our thanks and gratitude to the Goethe-Institut in Addis Ababa and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) for their support. Our thanks also go to the South Sudanese musicians and artists who participated and continue to participate in supporting the program.