WOWO- WOWA – RURO RUR SARANDEN
Calling on the sanctity of heaven
WADO-WADO MUMFES
Descend to the earth
KWAINSO BESINE-BESINENO
To strengthen all people
This Papuan song, sung during a traditional ceremony in offering to the heavens, was the opening number of the PARARA Festival. Young Papuan elementary school children, with wide eyed expectation to see the Jakarta they only read about in school books, were on stage performing like they had done it a hundred times before. They were confident, clear and proud to share the new knowledge from a Papuan school making sure they wouldn’t forget the traditional knowledge of their people. Yadupa, an indigenous Papuan organization, had brought the 25 children to Jakarta for the PARARA Festival, a festival that celebrates traditional cultural expressions such as woven fabrics, baskets, and other bounties that mother earth and other descendents have left the people of indonesia.
PARARA is short for “Panen Raya Nusantara” or “Great Harvest of the Archipelago”. The festival is one that brought together over 100 communities supported by 22 NGOs with a passion to place fair and sustainable local economy at the top of the mind of consumers and government alike. Located at the famed Lapangan Banteng Park in Central Jakarta, 3000 consumers came to visit 70 booths of eco-fair community products, witness culinary presentations of local, healthy food, learn about various themes such as intellectual property rights, women fisher heroines, and community enterprise success stories. Innovative sessions like the Wayang Rock –n- Roll which featured local producer concerns in a puppet show and the Fiber Fair Fashion show also delivered the message of eco-fair business in varying forms.
To make sure all was “clean and green” a young group of responsible children with whistles patrolled the grounds for litter bugs.
The two day festival of high energy, amazing turnover in terms of sales for most of the communities present, and one of new found knowledge and connections is truly inspiring…the next festival in 2017 is already being planned and those seeking to enlist are growing by the day. See you in 2017! Be ready to PARARA!
