Kenyans to celebrate Madaraka Day with new festival

Kenyans from across Minnesota will gather in Brooklyn Center on Saturday for a festival to celebrate Madaraka Day, the day in 1963 when Kenya attained self-rule and ceased to be a British colony.

Madaraka, which in Kiswahili means “self-governance,” is a Kenyan national holiday celebrated every year on June 1.

The first half of the new festival known as Kenya Fest will take place in Centennial Park from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m, will in its essence be reminiscent of Madaraka Day festivities back in Kenya, according to George “Jojo” Ndege, who organized the event, along with several Kenyan businesses, churches, and community organizations like Association of Kenyans in America (AKIA), Mwanyagetinge and the Global Fatherhood Foundation. Ndege, who is the chef and owner of Tamu Grill and Catering, a Kenya-fusion restaurant located in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis, said that the roughly 300 people who are expected to attend the festival will be treated to a day of games and traditional Kenyan cuisine.

“It’s an excuse for people to come out,” Ndege said. “They’ll have a chance to see how the community has changed in terms of generations, and a lot of the people will have a chance to meet people they have not [seen] for years, and we all live in Minnesota, but we don’t meet.”

Vendors selling Kenya themed merchandise like bracelets and T-shirts will also be at the festival, and there will be a children’s area, where kids can get faces painted and play while their parents unwind. Multiple deejays will be playing different music throughout the day, and there may also be a talent show.

The second half of the festival, which will be at the Palm Grove Event Center, just across the road from the park from 9 p.m. to 2 p.m., will be an indoor party separated by two rooms for younger generations and older folks to choose from, also spotlighting different deejays.

“There’s a lot more Kenyans who came here when they were young, really young, and there’s a lot of Kenyans who have been born including my kids, and there’s the [older generation],” Ndege said. “There has not been an event that really brought them together as a community, so I’m aiming to do that.”

Ndege has been in the entertainment industry for 20 years, bringing Kenyan artists to Minnesota as a concert promoter and hosting various events for both the Kenyan community and African community at large. The event will be Tamu’s first and will mark the end of a five-year pause of event planning for Ndege, who decided in 2019 to focus on opening and running Tamu Grill.

“After I opened the restaurant, I stopped that for a while and I’ve been wanting to come back because nobody really filled that spot,” said Ndege. “There’s different organizations that do different events within the community, but nobody has really done an event level that pulls Kenyans from all walks of life together to one place, so I wanted to come back and do that.”

With a little bit of something for everyone, the Kenyan Fest celebration will bring a much needed piece of Kenya to the Twin Cities, and will encourage people from all walks of life to interact.

“There’s about 10 to 15 thousand Kenyans in Minnesota, but we don’t have a community center where people can meet,” said Ndege. “With this [event], people from across the spectrum — from the different churches, different organizations, different tribes, different communities — will be able to mingle.”

About Kwot Anwey

Kwot Anwey is a reporting intern with Mshale and majors in journalism at Boston University.

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