Four member associations of the Auburn Small Communities Network (ASCON) which is chaired by Filipino community leader Dr Cen Amores hosted the West African colourful festival called Africulture in Auburn,NSW last July 15 at the Auburn Town Hall in effect highlighting the cross-cultural community civic leadership of Filipino community leaders.
Auburn is part of the reorganised Cumberland local government unit in NSW.
Dr Cen Amores . Chair of ASCON and her husband Ruben Amores, founder of the Kapitbahayan Cooperative which is based in Cumberland local government unit were special guests of the festival. Dr Amores also founded the peak organisation Alliance of Philippine Community Organisations (APCO) in addition to ASCON.
The festival which was themed “Joll of War” featured this year with a colourful venue adorned with bright African designs and was aimed to settle once and for all the debate as to which country’s Jollof rice reigns supreme.
Jollof is a one-pot rice dish popular in many West African countries. Jollof war is a West African banquet fit for an African king and queen.
It was an interesting activity which engaged all the guests from diverse backgrounds to have a taste of the contending countries’ version of their Jollof rice and were asked to choose by casting their votes which version reigns supreme.
The communities representinff four Wet African countries that jointly hosted this year’s Africultures festival are among the 40 organisational members of ASCON.
To keep the guests entertained, an African Dance Group composed of four ladies awed the guests with their superb fast-beat dancing and an instrumentalist African musician provided a relaxing music on a unique traditional African guitar.
Mr Ruben Amores is a recipient of a Premiers Award for Lifetime Service having served leadership in two Philippine peak body organisations including APCO while Dr Cen Amores had been countinously active in a number of cross cultural projects in NSW.
Among the West African leaders who coordinated the event was Fatma Mohamed of Somali Welfare Cultural Asociation.
A delicious choice of Western African food was served and before the event concluded, Ghana was officially declared as the winner of the Jollof War!