Tumaini Festival 2025

About The Festival

Tumaini Festival is Tumaini Letu’s flagship program, it is a unique cultural event which uses entertainment and artistic expression to promote intercultural harmony, mutual understanding, and peaceful coexistence between refugees and their host community. It is the only festival of its kind in the world that is held within a refugee camp.Tumaini Festival was founded in 2014. It is an extraordinary example of a large-scale cultural event within a refugee camp, created and run by refugees in collaboration with the surrounding host community, for the benefit of both. It also serves as a platform for advocacy on refugee rights.

This is the 11th edition of the festival, marking over a decade of cultural celebration and community impact.

Tumaini Festival 2025 will be a vibrant, three-day immersion into arts and culture, featuring:

• Five Performance Areas: Two stages (main stage, youth stage), a Poetry Corner, a Theatre Corner, and a Cultural Ground (traditional dance)
• Diverse Offerings: Music, poetry, comedy, films, theatre, acrobatics, traditional and contemporary dance, fashion, and workshops
• Community Engagement: An art exhibition space and a dedicated children’s playground
• Economic Opportunity: A variety of food stalls and ample opportunities for Dzaleka’s vendors to sell their goods and handcrafted arts.

How to Get There

Dzaleka Refugee Camp is located in Dowa District, approximately 45km from Lilongwe.

Free Admission

Everyone is welcome! The festival is free to attend, promoting inclusivity and community participation.

Tumaini Festival brings exceptional hope into the lives of people. There are times when you perform at Tumaini and observe from people’s reactions that the event is about more than music. It’s about instilling hope in the hopeless.

— Skeffa Chimoto, Musician

For more details about Tumaini Festival, visit www.tumainiletu.org or follow us on social media:

• https://www.facebook.com/tumainifestival
• https://www.instagram.com/tumainifestival/
• https://x.com/tumainifestival
• https://www.tiktok.com/@tumaini.letu
• https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiUc7kz3Pmw7__8_o41lkew