Burmese traditions on show at festival

KAREN Burmese people in Sheffield are set to hold a week-long celebration of their culture, including an exhibition about the plight of their people and their new lives in Britain.

Members of the Karen Community Association UK have organised the festival, which will begins with a fundraising event at Cemetery Road Baptist Church on Saturday, March 20, involving traditional Burmese food, music and dancing.

There will also be an exhibition at Bank Street Arts from March 20 to 27. Two of the gallery spaces will be used to display sound clips, photographs and slideshows of the work of Sheffield Hallam University's Burmese community reporters.

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Dr Eleanor Lockley, who helps to run the Burmese Community Reporters adult learning project at the university, said: "The reporters have put together a number of radio programmes explaining and discussing their experiences in Burma and Thailand.

"There is a programme which focuses on the 1988 Burma uprising, and lots of other cultural artefacts, including traditional clothes and music, will be on display in the galleries."

Festival organiser Win Choe Toe said: "We are very concerned about our people. There have been reports recently of increased attacks in the Eastern Burma Karen State. More than 70 houses and two schools have been burned down and thousands of civilians displaced.

"Because we understand these situations first hand, we want to help the Karen people of Burma by holding this fundraising event. From the funds we raise, 80 per cent will go straight to helping the displaced inside Burma and the rest will help fund Karen Community Association UK activities."

The festival will finish with an event at Bank Street Arts on Saturday, March 27.

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