Green Festival lights up Kololo airstrip

Sep 04, 2013

Many thought that the heavy rain that wreaked havoc during the mid-hours hours of the My Kid is a Superstar Green Fun Festival at Kololo Airstrip on Sunday would mess up the event. Far from it!

By Nigel Nassar

Many thought that the heavy rain that wreaked havoc during the mid-hours hours of the My Kid is a Superstar Green Fun Festival at Kololo Airstrip on Sunday would mess up the event.  Far from it!

Instead, the rain, which tore through the skies a little after 3:00pm and blew away some service provider tents, acted as a sort of interlude before the festival, in its second year running, hit fever pitch.

It was as though a build-up of sorts kept going on while it rained – both in the tents and on the roads. Because after the rain, the funfair, which had broken off after children’s modeling, biking and dancing activities, resumed with reinvigorated energy, and more children.

It was cold, yes. But interestingly, children, who by the way are the target publics of this festival, seemed oblivious of the cold weather as they trudged the wet grounds, surging towards the stage, where the main activities were going on.

Their chaperones just had to accompany them wherever they wished to enjoy their fun. Some chaperones kept losing track of them. But with a dedicated team of announcers, the children were eventually found. Interestingly, they didn’t seem spooked at all when found. For them, getting lost was one of those fun things.

The bouncing castles in the play area were busy; the swings recounting their oscillations to no recall. The face painters kept refilling their ink; the food sellers scooping platefuls with the excitement of a gold digger with a piece in hand. The guys collecting money to give children short horse rides were also full of smiles.  

In the zoo area (yes, UWEC’S zoo left Entebbe for Kampala), hosts of children didn’t seem to have enough of the serval cat, lion, red-tailed monkey, parrots, gray-crowned crane, leopard, ostrich and the African rock python on display.

Children and their parents admire an ostrich at the Green fun festival. PHOTO/Nicholas Kajoba

Basically, the crowds were overwhelming, estimated at over 13,000 revelers, all enjoying the amalgam of activities going on, children and adults alike.

There were some really great acts on the stage, by children. Many were awestruck by Rainbow House of Life, a group of orphans from Nsambya, who pulled off amazing choreography to P-Square’s Personally and Konshens’ Gyala Bubble like they took part in choreographing the videos.

And they didn’t just copy and paste – they modified what we see in the videos, coming off with an effect that left all agape. There was also a one Rocking It Gal (Immaculate Nantongo), some three-year-old who mimed Rema’s Oli Wange and left us speechless.

Alex Ssempijja’s Let’s Go Green song won him a year’s school fees scholarship, among the many goodies children won, which also included free Toto Magazines, children’s favourite publication.

Young Ssempijja got the scholarship because the song highlights the real purpose of the festival, which is a product of My Kid is a Super Star’s Uganda’s Little Hands Go Green, an initiative to green-up Uganda.

Away from its fun activities, the festival aims at inculcating in children a culture of taking care of the environment by planting trees for a greener and healthier Uganda, under the theme: “Our environment is our future, and our future is our responsibility.”

Kids admire a tigress at the festival

Also sponsored by New Vision’s Toto Magazine, the National Forestry Authority and the National Council for Children, the event, which had child star Little Tammy as one of the entertainers, saw all children in attendance leave with a fruit tree seedling each to plant back home. Superstar Kid Talent Search finalist Jovita Kintu also had a bit of luck come her way, as children collected for her sh175,000 towards the sh70m kidney transplant she’s supposed to undergo in London, UK.

Coco Finger did the climaxing performance before accompanying Toto Magazine editor Jovita Ajuna aka Auntie Jovita in cutting the festival cake that children enjoyed as they left the one event they now call their own.

Accompanying the children aka superstars back home was a message from My Kid is a Superstar CEO Joseph Masembe, asking them to keep their green outfits in waiting for the Green Christmas party on December 15, 2013.   

 

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