New Zealand & Australia Part 1
This past month Eritreans from the Diaspora, specifically from New Zealand and Australia came back to the motherland during the holiday season. Once they had arrived, one of the things they did was come to NUEYS as groups within their respective nations and inquired if NUEYS would provide them with tourist events that show Eritrea’s cultural and national identity. This was especially important because it was an opportunity for the youth to be further educated on their cultural, social and historic background.
NUEYS in response to these requests came up with different events that were both educative and entertaining. Within a span of around two weeks NUEYS held five events.
The first Event held by NUEYS for the Eritrean Diasporas was a visit to the National Museum of Eritrea. The museum is home to a variety of different ancient and non-ancient artifacts, fossils, paintings, and look alike sculptures depicting Eritrean history (ancient and recent) in a truly beautiful fashion. When they arrived they were given an introduction by the director of Public Relations of the museum, Mr.Haile Berhe, about the history of the museum and its origin.
After that the tour of the museum began. They were first shown artifacts depicting different ancient civilizations that had resided in ancient periods of Eritrea. They were also shown artifacts showing the tools and resources used in the daily life of the ancient civilizations.
Then, proceeded to paintings that were from the revolutionary period, where many freedom fighters who were also artists painted pieces that reflected and represented the struggles and beauties of that period. This portion of the tour in particular was quite fascinating, because it displayed the creativity of the freedom fighters at a time when war was so destructive and darkening. There were also paintings that were not specifically about the revolutionary era, but that depicted different historical and social Eritrean events.
Later on, they were shown look-alike sculptures of Eritrea’s ecosystem and wildlife. There were also head sculptures mounted on the wall, of other animals within the Eritrean ecosystem.
Near the end, the youth were shown different religious artifacts of both Christian and Muslim decent that showed Eritrea’s religious historical background and origin. Finally at the end of the tour displays representing the nine ethnic tribes and certain artifacts that are used in their daily lives were shown in their respective displays.
When the tour of the museum was completed, the group was formally introduced to the employees of the museum. The group then proceeded in extending the employees of the museum huge gratitude for the very informative and mind-expanding tour they had been given.
Stay tuned to read about the following four events that followed that were planned by NUEYS for the Eritrean Diasporas. NUEYS continues to work with the diaspora in many areas to help them understand and interact with their nation on a continually increasing level and capacity.