Chris Theko
Face of Lesotho will host an event called the Culture Affair Experience as a way to celebrate tourism month and marking the beginning of Basotho year.
The extravagant culture-themed event will be held at Manthabiseng Convention Center tomorrow (Saturday).
According to the Director of Face of Lesotho who is also the organiser of the event, Lintle Setho, the event is aimed at celebrating the culture of Basotho with a twist of modern-day concepts to attract young people into embracing their culture.
“The idea behind the event is to instill the love for culture and teach young people about the importance of knowing where we come from as Basotho,†Setho said.
Amongst many of its objectives and mandates, Face of Lesotho (FoL) promotes love for culture amongst young people as a way to preserve culture.
It is because of this that Setho highlighted the Culture Affair event and the FoL cannot be separated.
“The person who wins the annual beauty pageant becomes the Face of Lesotho which means she has to embrace and love our culture, know where we come from and embrace being a Mosotho proudly,†Setho said.
“So we realised that just hosting the FoL event every year is not enough to educate the young people we deal with about our culture as Basotho and to embrace it so we came up with ideas of how we can enhance our efforts and the Culture Affair experience is one such idea
“It will be a day of expressing ourselves through cultural attire, traditional food, our reach traditional music and dances which will be on display,†Setho added.
The event is also held in line with world tourism month. 1 to 30 September tourism month is celebrated annually and provides a heightened month-long focus on the importance of the tourism sector.
It features themed activities that are aligned with the United Nations World Tourism Organisation’s (UNWTO) world tourism day celebrations on September 27.
Lesotho’s celebrations of the tourism month are preceded by the beginning of the Basotho year which is celebrated at the beginning of August.
Setho said it is because of this period that they felt it was appropriate to have the event as it will help to further teach people about Basotho year.
“We are going to have conversations and teachings around why Basotho calendar is different from the Gregorian calendar. We will also have theatre, music by Omali Themba and poetry by Mothula Tsepe with Sothokids also taking part in the activities,†Setho concluded.
