Crawley Mela Association
Back again, bigger, better and more international than ever, Mela Festival 2009 offers
a full weekend of family fun and activity with something for everyone. But
this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The new Committee (shown below) is planning not only
the traditional Mela Festival but also to extend our range of year-round
community services, including:
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Bigger Childrens' Parade in
conjunction with the Crawley festival finale on July 5 -
featuring the return of the uplifting Bloco Fogo Samba
street band
-
More Same Sky Artist Residencies
in local schools - get your request in now!
-
More School and Community
Outreach visits from multicultural artists - see the
Outreach page for a current listing.
-
Sports for teens - kabadi, kite
flying, martial arts, Chi Gong, a new Crawley Open
Volleyball league!
-
Youth Events with Crawley
Vision In Youth Collective.
-
More Festival content -
off-stage interactive, more artforms and media including
comedy and music fusion with the 2009 focus on bhangra and
Latina styles.
2008/9 Mela Executive Committee: Hazel Ellis, Cllr. Jim Smith, Hash
Mulji, Rick Heybroek, Sajida Irshad, Roger Fox, Upendra Sharma, Sarah Lee, Deven
Patel, Raj Amin. Not shown: Cllr. Brenda Smith (photographer)
As always, the Festival features a complete range of children's workshops upstairs in the Hawth over the weekend, including rongoli, sugar magic, soap decorations, kite-making, palmistry, tarot, face- and henna-painting and much more.
For families we have the highly popular Community Stage
with a full parallel programme including Hindu dance, Irish dance, African fashions, magic, music and more. Look around and you'll find other workshops both outside and inside the Hawth, including Tiger Crane
Chi Gong, health and well-being workshops for adults and something new for 2005, the Africa Zone, with African storytelling, M'bira playing, drumming, mask making, acrobats and Cajun BBQ.
Once again, the Mela Committee have put together a glowing tribute to multi-cultural Crawley, based on the efforts of a small army of hard-working volunteers from our Hindu, Afro-Caribbean, Buddhist and Islamic communities, and delivered with no entrance charge, in keeping with our ancient Mela tradition of respect for all human life.
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