Monday, August 14, 2017
Comboni College of Science Technology (CCST) celebrated its III Cultural Week from 5 th to 10 th August 2017, in Sudan. As usually every year, this weak represents an opportunity for the College to interact with Sudanese society and share an alternative message. The theme of the first Cultural Week was diversity. As for the second one, the theme was the environment and the care for it. This year instead the theme was “Identity”. Most of the South Sudanese, Eritrean and Ethiopian students of the College are born in Sudan and don’t know the country of their ancestors.
They don´t feel South Sudanese, Eritreans nor Ethiopians as those born in these countries nor Sudanese. This situation raises the question: who I am. Also Sudanese students expressed their desire to deepen into the old history of the country as it’s part of them and is not taught in depth during the school.
To build a solid identity is fundamental because a weak identity is the best entrance for any kind of fundamentalist ideology that may offer itself as a “sound identity provider”. This was the theme of the film that closed the week, “Iman”. The film represents a reaction against the campaigns of fundamentalist recruiters that tried to gain university students for the cause of the Islamic State. The production of the film was supported by the Sudan National Commission for Counter Terrorism (SNCCT). Some students of the College participated in the shooting and some scenes were shot in the College, the Secondary School (Comboni College Khartoum) and the Comboni Playground.
The screening of the film took place in the courtyard of the Secondary School and hosted 2,300 persons. According to Sudan Film Factory it may have been the film screening with a biggest audience in Africa. The week was also followed by different local TV channels (Sudania 24, Omdurman TV, Khartoum TV).
The cultural week was made of an inauguration where the students could express their cultural identities through music and dance; a cultural and academic exhibition with 15 stands; two conferences on Sudanese Heritage and Sudanese Dialect and the final event with the screening of Iman and a concert by the band who composed the music of the film.