AFRICAFEST 2025
The Africa Day Festival (AFRICAFEST) organised by Outenikwastat House of Rastafari will take place on May 23 – 25, 2025 at Witfontein Nature Reserve in George, Western Cape,South Africa.
It is the most celebrated Pan African Festival on the Garden Route. Initiated by the RasTafari community in the Southern Cape in the late 90’s, AFRICAFEST has become a flagship festival in the Western Cape which gives local and international guests a platform to reflect on the past, present and future of the African continent, its people and diaspora through expressions of arts, culture and wellness.
Since 1996 Outenikwastat House of RasTafari (OSHOR) through AFRICAFEST has offered all Africans on the continent and in the diaspora, the communal space to participate in music, dance, film and ceremony; in arts, in culture, healing journeys and meditation – about the slave trade and colonial project (Berlin conference 1884/85) and the lasting impact of coloniality and neocolonialism in Africa and its people.
AFRICAFEST, originally known as the Africa Liberation Day Festival, offers the opportunity for healing the wounds of trauma and celebrating the anniversary of the founding of the African Union (AU). The festival has, in the past 2 decades, evolved into a highly valued grassroots community Arts, Culture and Wellness Festival of global stature hosted in the Garden Route.
The AFRICAFEST on the Malgas riverside in the Witfontein nature reserve established in 2016 to mainstream the ecological wellness essence of the festival and to ensure the mobilization of participation and resources nationally and internationally for its growth. Coordinated by a Community based organisation, the festival collaborates with the local municipality of George.
The OSHOR utilises its capacity towards the hosting of projects at sacred sites of indigeneity, collaboration with continental and global platforms, the initiating and convening of a range of national events such as the Adwa x Salt River Victories Parade and Roots, Culture, Heritage and Decoloniation Week
The 3-day annual festival maintains a programme that is centred in holding sacred spaces, indigenous ceremonies, creative installations and dialogue and performance arts to counter the effects of colonialism, healing the trauma of the past, uprooting the divisions caused by the “Berlin conference 1884|85” in Africa and fostering social cohesion towards a progressive destiny for the continental and global people of Africa in the international realm of a collective humanity
Alongside the healing journeys, AFRICAFEST celebrates the talents and achievements of Africa’s people in cultural, artistic, creative and intellectual creative spheres. It serves to reconnect Africans with their strengths and thus enlightened to consciousness, purposing themselves to take ownership of creating a peaceful, prosperous and united African Destiny while being aware of the dreadful past with its teachings.
AFRICAFEST is built around wisdom and collaborations which seek to engage and examine important social challenges, foster progressive dialogue and also celebrate the annual anniversary of the African Union. Most importantly, AFRICAFEST is positioned as a cultural centre and hub for creative Africans across the western Cape, greater South Africa and the worldwide community to both spotlight their craft and share space in significant ways that cannot be seen as common.
AFRICAFEST
23- 25 May 2025
Witfontein Nature Reserve, Georg
https://linktr.ee/africadayfestival