June 28th, 2006, Celtel boosts Kenya music festival

Celtel Kenya announced a Kshs 4 million sponsorship of this year’s Kenya Music Festival.

At the function, it also emerged that this year’s national finals will be staged in at Lion Schools in Nakuru and not the traditional Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC). It will be the first time since 1927 for the national final to be held out of Nairobi. Making the announcement, Celtel’s chief commercial officer Michael Dabaly said the company would continue to support cultural and education related events as part of its longer-term strategy throughout Africa. “That is why we have increased our sponsorship for this year’s Festival to Ksh4 million. You may remember that last year, we gave out Ksh1.56 million for the same, but the success that went along with the Festival has enticed us to fork out event more resources”, said Dabaly.

“At Celtel we know that African arts and culture captivate the spirit, soul and vibrancy of the African people. We believe the arts and culture are the best way to exemplify the African story throughout the world,” he added.

Mr. Dabaly said, the Kenya Music Festival is arguably the epitome of annual display of cultural activities with a bias in music, dance and verse speaking in the entire continent. The festival, he said, not only pools immense resources and talents for greater creativeness, imagination and increased confidence of all who participate, but also unites Kenyans from different backgrounds. He said the sponsorship is in line with Celtel International commitment to support Arts and Culture throughout the African continent. A few weeks ago, Celtel hosted the Caine Prize nominees in Kenya.

Apart from the Music Festival, Dabaly said that the company had also set aside Ksh30 million under a programme, ‘Build.Our nation’ geared towards making life better to school going children.

“Every academic term, we randomly select two schools from each province and thereafter assess their needs and offer appropriate support. Some schools would need textbooks, some require desks and chairs while others classrooms, all under the Build.Our nation programme”, said Dabaly.

Acting Education Minister Dr Noah Wekesa who presided over the ceremony thanked Celtel Kenya for sponsoring the annual event.

The festival is billed as the largest cultural extravaganza in Africa with an estimated 8,000 participants taking the stage and over 50,000 visitors attending daily shows.