SYAH-Seychelles organises second ‘Arwi Lontan’ |05 August 2017

SYAH-Seychelles, the local chapter of a regional youth led NGO, organised the second ‘Arwi Lontan’ on Saturday July 29 at the Youth Centre.

‘Arwi Lontan’ is an annual cultural and educational initiative by the NGO to help preserve and promote another pillar of sustainable development; the cultural pillar. The event is aimed at raising awareness about Seychellois culture and tradition among young people. As stated by SYAH-Seychelles vice-president, Lisa Bastienne, “one of the benefits of this event is that it brings young people together to socialise and to engage in an effort to promote the pillars of sustainable development in this case culture”.

Those who took part comprised young people from Pointe Larue, Mont Fleuri and Beau Vallon secondary schools and also members from SYAH-Seychelles.  

“First on the programme was a session dedicated to learning traditional creole dance. Through this session conducted by Stephanie Elizabeth, the youths had the chance to learn and to practice the basic techniques used when dancing the ‘kanmtole’, ‘sega’ and ‘moutya’. The techniques include for example how to position and move one’s feet when dancing a specific traditional dance. At the end of the morning session all those who took part had to perform what they had learned through a small display.

The afternoon session was conducted by Marina Lawen, who is a member of the POATSONDANS, a group from La Batie whose focus is on the promotion of poetry, drama, music and dance.  The aim of the afternoon session was to educate participants on Creole ‘zedmo’ and using ‘lanblenm fler/mouswar’ for communication as practiced by the older generation.                                                                                                                                                                                To test their knowledge the participants took part in a quiz competition. As part of the quiz and her presentation Mrs Lawen explained that long ago for example if a young man was to give a young girl a ‘Fler Begonya’ this meant that the young man could not stop thinking about the lady.

“The session was very interesting, through it I learned about traditional practices and even about flowers that I did not know had such an important significance in our culture,” said Alvania Lawen.

“It’s inspiring to see that young people are truly interested to learn about our tradition and culture,” said another participant.

As for the organisers, SYAH-Seychelles, it is the second time around that they organise such an initiative; the first one hosted at the Seychelles Tourism Academy last year focused on traditional Creole cuisine and storytelling and it also saw positive feedback from participants and schools involved.

“There should be more initiatives like this,” said SYAH-Seychelles secretary Nathalie Young.

She added that “it is through these events that we are able to realise that in the future most young people will not be aware of our unique traditional practices, hence we have to do something to keep our tradition alive”.

Reiterating Ms Young’s point of view, Ryan Dewea, also from SYAH-Seychelles, expressed his concern over the fact that we might lose our culture if we do not preserve it.

“What will happen when the older generation can no longer be there to preserve our cultural practices, who will protect it then?” asked Ryan. 

At the end of the event the two instructors – Ms Elizabeth and Ms Lawen -- received a bouquet as a token of appreciation from SYAH-Seychelles while all participants received a certificate for their active participation.

The instructors also received certificates of appreciation.

S.M.Barbé