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Holi Spring Festival/Engage Launch Event

Organised by SGAP - South Gloucestershire Asian Project

"The Hindu festival of Spring, called Holi, is a traditional cultural festivity that SGAP celebrate (albeit retrospectively) on the day of their AGM, which this year was on March 28 2004.

This year was no exception, however there was one additional surprise – our Holi celebrations were host to the official launch of Engage 2004, a Festival of Culture.

Engage 2004 is being led by South Gloucestershire Council in partnership with a range of Community Groups across the county, in particular SGAP.

SGAP Committee member Kamlesh Mistry, representing SGAP on the Steering Group of this project, said:

Engage 2004 is an excellent way to bring together different cultural groups, and to help each other understand our cultural heritage and traditions - Holi is the perfect celebration at which to launch this project.

SGAP are extremely pleased to be invited to play a leading role in this initiative, and we are committed to ensuring it’s success.
 

Councillor June Lovell, Vice-Chair South Gloucestershire Council officially launched Engage 2004 with a short speech, praising the involvement of SGAP and other community groups in such a worthy project.

The audience were then invited to enjoy some refreshments and tasty, spicy Indo-Chinese cuisine supplied by Gitus Rasoi of Leicester.

Everyone enjoyed and complimented the quality of the delicious food which included Dhokla (chick pea cakes), Vegetable Samosas, Fried Mogo (Cassava), Chilli Paneer (Indian cheese), various chutneys and Jelabi (Indian Sweets).

The evening was brought to a close with the Holi festivities – a celebration of Spring.

Traditionally, in India, Holi is celebrated by playfully throwing colourful powders and spraying coloured water on family and friends throughout the day. The wide range of coloured powders in use is symbolic of the fresh and vibrant colours that appear naturally at the arrival in Spring.

At SGAP we used confetti and coloured glitter to continue the tradition in a different way, but with no less of an impact.

Everyone agreed that the festivities, filled with music, singing and dancing, as well as glittering colours, were a great way to round off a fun–packed day!"

Kam Mistry - SGAP