BUJUMBURA September 19th (ABP) – “Ibanga Success Award” (ISA), a major project committed to promoting Burundian culture and ancestral values, was officially launched on Friday September 15, 2023 in Bujumbura.
Ibanga Success Award, aims to promote Burundian culture through a series of competitions which will be organized throughout the national territory and at the end of which “considerable” trophies will be awarded to the best winners, a check on the site by ABP has revealed.
That official launch saw the participation of various government executives, other country officials, but also and above all different cultural clubs in that case Yagamahoro, Umudeyo, Intahemuka, Abeza, Abahizi and many others, he said, a check on the site by ABP has revealed.
On that occasion, the cultural advisor to the management in charge of culture at the Ministry of East African Community Affairs, Youth, Sports and Culture, Venant Igirukwishaka, positively appreciated the initiators of that project which aims to promote cultural entrepreneurship. That is an eloquent indicator which testifies to the determination and awareness of Burundians regarding the contribution to the vision of Burundi as an emerging country by 2040 and a developed country in 2060.
According to him, Burundian culture has long conveyed the message encouraging the people to get down to work, so laziness had no place. He indicated that drawing on the depths of Burundian cultural heritage will help build a solid foundation of a developed and united country.
According to him, each individual has within him talents and potentialities which he must externalize in order to contribute to the sustainable development of his homeland and help his fellow citizens to develop. It is time, according to him, that everyone can evaluate themselves by highlighting hidden talents that could contribute to the sustainable development of Burundi. This is how he launched an appeal to all artists and especially young people to collaborate favorably with the Ibanga success Award project for the well-being of the promotion of Burundian cultural heritage.
For his part, the initiator of the aforementioned project, Eliade Ninteretse, underlined the importance of preserving culture while noting that it is a collective heritage, a source of wealth and which constitutes a factor of rapprochement, tolerance, freedom, respect and dialogue. Its destruction represents a threat to the peace of a country, he said. Mr. Ninteretse said that even if Burundian culture has evolved, it remains precious. He also indicated that when a person turns his back against the culture and tradition of his country, that shows that the latter embraces the culture of others (foreign), which constitutes a major danger. According to him, the corollaries of acculturation are most often harmful, whether from the psychological point of view of the individual or from the social and cultural point of view. For the individual, he added, the phenomenal consequence of acculturation is the partial loss of identity, or even the total loss.