Cape Town skies will be filled with a burst of colour, creativity and courage this weekend for the Cape Town International Kite Festival.
Cape Mental Health’s annual Kite Festival has been supporting mental health initiatives for over 30 years, and attracts people of all ages. Each kite that takes to the skies is representative of not only creativity and freedom, but also the courageous act of speaking up and expressing yourself in your times of need, as well as supporting others through difficult times.
COURTESY: Facebook - Cape Town International Kite Festival‘’The last
five years or so has been quite challenging for everybody – It has been
characterised by geopolitical instability and uncertainty, and these have all
contributed to widespread anxiety and mental health issues. Society has been
consistently exposed to very distressing news relating to violence, food
insecurity, crime, adverse weather impacts within the Cape Town area,’’ said Carol
Bosch, Cape Mental Health Deputy CEO.
‘’When we
look at this month [October], we want to normalise conversations about mental
health and the importance of having good mental health. We are able to open up
those conversations and to say, ‘you know, what do we all need to do to have
good mental health?’ And so we use the kite festival as a major awareness
raising program, where we can educate the public about the importance of good
mental health. This year's theme is courage to fly. We like the symbolism that
for people with mental disability, every day is a challenge. Every day they
need to fight stigma, they need to fight people's prejudice, and the
limitations their mental disability have on them. In addition, that takes a lot
of courage for them to be able to stand up and to become resilient and face
every day and we want to acknowledge the strength that they have, and to acknowledge
that for all of us, it is important to have this courage - whether it is the
courage to deal with your mental health issues, whether it is the courage to
seek help, or whether it is the courage just to have a conversation with
somebody to say, ‘look, I'm struggling, I am in need of some help’,’’ she
added.
COURTESY: Facebook - Cape Town International Kite Festival‘’It has been
our dream to restore it to the two-day festival, but because of COVID and its restrictions,
we were just not able to do this. I am not sure who is more excited, whether it
is us or the public and we want to maximise this opportunity in terms of just
all the activities that we will be having – There will be various kite making
workshops and those workshops will be facilitated by international and local
kites. We will have the presentation of the Edukite competition as well. And
then added to that, we have 11 kites internationally and locally that will be
flying their kites and these would be kites that we have seen in the past, but
they would also be newer kites that would also be on show over the two days. We
will also have various stalls at the kite festival – from food to art. We will
also be exhibiting some of the products that Cape Mental Health also produces
within the organisation,’’ said Bosch.
COURTESY: Facebook - Cape Town International Kite FestivalDone By:
Mitchum George
Comments