PAPUA NEW GUINEA dubbed as the land of million journey and home to a thousand tribes speaking over 600 different languages and a culturally diverse nation located in the Southern Pacific region.
The country is culturally diverse and rich however, the trend of Western Influence is slowly but surely had immense impact to the sudden decline and decay of some of these unique cultures. The National Cultural Commission, a Government agency established by the National Cultural Commission Act 1994 is mandated under the Ministry of Tourism, Art and Culture to preserve, protect, develop, promote and safeguard Papua New Guinea indigenous cultures.
With the mission to serve the people and its cultures, the national cultural commission continues to embark on cultural development at the community level engaging with the resource owners to take ownership of our cultures and its heritages.
In doing so, the National Cultural Commission (NCC) partners with the Samarai-Murua District Development Authority together with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture under the leadership of Minister Isi Henry Leonard who is the local member for Samarai-Murua electorate have launched the Samarai-Murua Island music, song and dance festival in Port Moresby.
The inaugural festival will be happening on the 11th-13th, August 2023.
National Cultural Commission has registered, certified and recognized it in its national cultural events calendar with a blessing of K10, 000 going towards of the festival. Executive director Mr. Steven Enomb Kilanda when presenting the certificate speaks volume of the significance of hosting live shows or festivals in a way to better promote and preserve cultures.
We are now going rural, that’s our new approach we are undertaking to go down at the community level and involve the people who are the resource owners. In that way, we are working closely with the people to ensure our cultures is revived, preserved, protected, and promoted at the grassroots level.
This helps us identify and develop a mutual understanding of where our culture is at now and what needs to be done to sustain these cultures,” said Mr. Kilanda. So far, we have launched 85 cultural shows and festivals throughout the country and our commitment and drive into the next five years is to get everyone involved through mutual partnership with the district development authority and the Provincial governments in cultural development.
Minister Isi Henry Leonard on behalf of the district thanked and appreciate the National Cultural Commission for continuing to do what is does best in preserving, protecting, developing, promoting and safeguarding Papua New Guinea’s indigenous cultures.
Culture is one of the unique and precious tourism products we have in the country that is living. It is through out diverse cultural displays that attracted tourists to come into our country thus, in the past months record have shown that the number of international tourists visiting our shores has risen.
This is exciting times, and most people at the village level are ripping the benefits through spin offs opportunities and providing cultural service to those visitors,” said Minister Leonard. The opportunities are great and it helps the people to realize the importance of their cultures and held on to some of these unique cultures that is within us.
Music live festivals, song and dance is one of the great avenues that offers the platform for our local musicians, dancers and singers to come play, show case their raw talents and fundamentally their cultures through these performances,” Minister Leonard said.
We will be working closely with the National Cultural Commission to deliver the Samarai-Murua Island music, song and dance festival promoting it to be even bigger and better festival in the district, province and Southern region as whole,” added Minister Isi Henry Leonard.
