Family, friends, relatives, and former students of the Late Derik Oya Alfred on Thursday launched the second edition of the Derik Cultural Festival in Juba to commemorate his life.
Derik Oya Alfred, a renowned South Sudanese artist, actor, and writer, died at the age of 59 after a short illness in Khartoum in 2021.
Atem Simon, the President of the Derik Cultural Festival, said the festival aims at promoting peace and social cohesion among South Sudanese through music and art.
“This festival is to make the culture and art from being a normal thing of our life to a major tool in changing the lives of people and also to bring peace as the main objective of this festival,” Simon said. “Peace can come through this kind of knowing each other, peace can come through fostering and focusing on songs that focus on peaceful coexistence also, one of the objectives of this festival is to create a dialogue for the generations.
He said the annual festival is a platform for South Sudanese to unite and dialogue about their future and try to foster their national identity.
Simon explained that the event is to remind people of the achievements and contributions made by Derik in the national liberation struggle and to the national consciousness through arts, music, writing, and theatre.
On his part, Michael Joseph, a family representative, said Derik left behind a legacy that he used music to unite the South Sudanese through art and culture.
“Derik did not have a tribe, the tribe of Derik is South Sudan, and this is what I want to ask to keep on that we are the same people, we have the same background, and we can remain together given the indifference we have among ourselves, but our culture can always bring us together,” Joseph said.
Meanwhile, Doreen Wosuk Ladu, State Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports in Central Equatoria State, said her ministry is in discussion with the national ministry of culture to organize a cultural gala that brings together all the South Sudanese tribes to showcase their cultures.
“We in Central Equatoria are working to preserve our culture. In our policy in the ministry, we have the plan to organize cultural events for Central Equatoria as a state, but I am looking at a way of discussing with the national government a cultural day for South Suda’s cultures so that we know our cultures so that we know what these tribes do and what they share in their cultures this is the best way to preserve cultures,” she said.
Minister Wosuk added, “We as humans look at cultures in view of tribalism, but we need to change that. We need to look at cultures as something that unites us, like an example of the Kuato or the Urupap; let us all embrace these and integrate it into our communities of South Sudan.”
The Derik Cultural Festival is an annual event that takes place every year in memory of the late artist Derik Uyai Alfred who was an artist, former minister in Western Bahr el Ghazal, founder of Kuato Cultural Group, and also contributed to the establishment of the first museum in Western Bahr el Ghazal state.
The Late was born in 1962 in Wau of Western Bahr al-Ghazal State. He attended his basic and secondary education in Wau schools, then joined the Higher Institute of Arts and Theater in Khartoum and became the director of the Kuwato Cultural Center and Troupe.
Kuwato is a cultural group formed in Khartoum as a model for a theatre that called for peace and peaceful coexistence between the components of Sudanese society in the north and south.
He was later appointed the Western Bahr el Ghazal State Minister of Culture, Information, and Communication following South Sudan’s independence in 2011 and then served as the commissioner of the Arts Commission from 2012-2016.