Last week we had the privilege of celebrating the #Givingtuesday event with La Cocina. We offered the opportunity for donors and friends to come and enjoy a festive night of celebration. Iskashitaa and friends enjoyed a lovely night of music and food to spear head the season of giving. The event lasted from 5pm until 10pm.
Many of our performers were able to speak on their reasons for joining the celebration. We had live bands from all over the world which speak to the overreaching capabilities that Iskashitaa has benefited from. Some of the musical talents consisted of dancing, live instruments and signing.
We are indebted to La Cocina for allowing us to spend the night there for our celebration. We also want to give thanks to La Cocina for the blessing of promoting our event with their percentage night. Another thank you needs to be given to each of the performers. All of the performers come from many of our world’s walks of life and we cannot be any more grateful. I was able to sit and enjoy listening to some of the performers as they exchanged a few words with me through a small interview.
The Lucky Boyz (content here) were ecstatic to hear they were going to be interviewed. The Lucky Boyz are a four person group of dancers: Alteen, Ibrahim, Noashima, and Serestino. The group are a collective of young boys each from a different country, i.e. as Tanzania, Congo and Mexico. They mentioned they practice regularly to hone in their skills and started dancing together at their schools during lunch period. The music they dance to is a collective of Hip Hop, Pop, Afro-Beats, while also integrating Congo and Nigerian music into their sets. The group has been together for about a year and would love to continue dancing and performing together for years to come.
The boys were easy going and very communicative. The next person I spoke with was Joel Mugisha who is a member of the Freedom Band (content here). He is a Congo native that grew up in Uganda. He has only been living in the US for about a year and loves the Tucson community as it has accepted him with open arms. He started singing in the US the day he stepped foot here but has been singing all his life. At a young age Joel was part of his church choir where he developed his love for singing. The initial church choir member soon became the director and the teacher of the program. He also has great skill in composing and recording songs which he said came with the position but absolutely loves it. Joel loves to perform in front of people and does not see himself stopping soon. He initially heard about Iskashitaa through the work his father used to do with us. He mentioned his own personal time with Iskashitaa has benefited him greatly and adores the organization for the work they offer for many people of different backgrounds.
The last person I was able to interview was Tilahun Liben. Tilahun has been performing for a long time. He got started playing for his High School Marching Band. He is an experienced musician and plays the saxophone and the accordion. Not only that, he also enjoys the skill he has of writing his own music to play for events or just for fun. He mentioned the givingtuesday event was not his first performance at La Cocina and enjoys anytime he can be on stage to showcase his talents. He is a skilled musician and enjoys a company on stage but also does solo shows.
The night was an amazing spectacle of music, dance, singing, and food. Iskashitaa is proud of how the event turned out. We enjoyed the time spent speaking to one anther as we were able to spend time with loved ones from all over our community. For more on the musicians, links are embedded to their music below. Thank you again to all of our supporters that came out and enjoyed the beautiful Tuesday night with warm greetings.
Best,
Alfonso Cavada-Tavares
Iskashitaa Refugee Network
Social Media Intern