Katiba Banat
Adhel Arop was born in Kakuma refugee camp, near the border between Kenya and Sudan. Her family moved to Nairobi when her mother Amel Madut got a job interpreting through the United Nations. This work helped her family obtain immigration status to relocate to Canada.
Branded a “refugee”, Adhel felt disconnected from her roots and her identity while she was growing up. When relatives hinted she should dig deeper into her mother’s background, Adhel embarked on a research project that opened the door to a life-changing, trauma-healing conversation about her mother’s childhood as a soldier in the Sudanese civil war.
Adhel captured this poignant conversation in her award-winning Telus Storyhive documentary Who Am I? Now, Adhel plans to travel across Canada and around the world to speak to the other women of her mother’s regiment of child soldiers, known as Katiba Banat, or the First Girls.
Islands Celtic Festival
Started over 30 years ago by a lovely Scottish couple on Hornby Island, the Islands Celtic Festival has brought together a small community of Celtic music-lovers from the coast of BC and Washington year after year.
For years, the festival migrated from place to place to reduce the burden on any single organizer. In 2019, we found a permanent home at Errington War Memorial Hall. Sadly, after only one festival edition with a festival board, grants, a permanent home and room to grow, the pandemic hit, forcing artists and organizers to figure out how to throw a party over the internet in a hurry.
We were caught by surprise last year, but not this year.