A festival in Eswatini provided the perfect backdrop to encourage audiences to learn about and protect their human rights.
Lungile Magagula stands in the Eswatini Legal Aid Office booth, surrounded by pamphlets and booklets, holding conversations on how the laws help people access justice and enjoy their human rights.
"We have different people coming through our stall and we explain to them our mandate, provide legal awareness information, what legal assistance, including representation, could look like," said Magagula, who is the director of the Office.
Participants found the Eswatini Legal Aid Office and the numerous other booths like hers as they wandered through the "Bring Your Fire Zone" (BYFZ), in the Bushfire Festival, in Eswatini.
At this year's festival, the "Bring Your Fire Zone" was situated in such a way that people could wander through it or near it as they made their way from the camping sites for the weekend-long festival. Each person, each conversation is a chance for Magagula and others to remind people that their rights are important.
The MTN Bushfire Festival is one of the largest music festivals on the African continent, with more than 20,000 attending this year's three-day event. Taking place in late May each year, the festival focuses on music, activism and culture as a means to promote positive social and environmental change.
"I bring my fire for access to justice for all, that's the most important thing you can do," Magagula said. "And you can never truly ensure that there's access to justice unless people are actually aware of their legal rights. Unless people are aware of their rights, they can never be able to claim their rights to access justice."
For the second year. United Nations Eswatini (consisting of UN Human rights, UNICEF, UNDP, UNFPA, WHO, IOM and WFP) partnered with Bushfire in the "Bring Your Fire" events and zone.
The events and the zone, provide space for discussions, interactions and exchanges among the public, NGOs, UN and other organisations on a variety of human rights issues aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.
The BYFZ was a great way of reaching a wider variety of people through various means to promote and advocate human rights, said Laila Nazarali, UN Human Rights Office Advisor in Eswatini.
"It promotes building a constituency for human rights; it leverages partnerships for scaling up outreach and advocacy and it mainstreams human rights discourse with everyday issues as well as it provides an opportunity to shape the narrative on human rights," she said.
Bushfire Director Jiggs Thorne who founded the festival in 2007, said the zone was there to provide space for conversations and activism.
"One of the principal environments where we achieve this is the UN Bring Your Fire Zone, which is a space for creative activism and again where we take on relevant themes in line with the SDGs," he said.
Music + activism = perfect partnership
MTN Bushfire 2024 was the second time that the UN partnered with Bushfire to help promote and advocate on a variety of human rights and development issues important to both the country and the region. The partnership started last year as part of the Human Rights 75 commemoration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year, the partnership continued, providing an opportunity for the UN to enhance its visibility, outreach, and opportunities for advocacy by raising awareness of sensitive human rights issues aligned to the sustainable development goals (SDGs),
This year's themes were freedom of expression, gender and non-discrimination, right to health, right to a decent standard of living, and climate change.
Margaret Thwala-Tembe, Head of the Office for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) Eswatini Country Office, said partnering with the BYFZ provided an opportunity for them to engage a wide-ranging audience on key issues surrounding GBV.
"The dialogues with young people provided a good opportunity for discussions on issues of violence among young people," she said.
The BYFZ also received high level visitors this year. Eswatini Prime Minister Russell Dlamini said in an interview with UN Human Rights, that he appreciated what the festival does for the country - including putting it on the regional and global map and bringing financial resources into the country - boosting the economy and every sector.
"What I've just seen right now is how critical information is also being distributed and shared," he said. "You know, to the people who are here, it is good that they are able to learn leisurely and we appreciate that."
The partnership encompassed not just the weekend festival, but weeks before and after. S everal live dialogues on thematic issues were held at House on Fire, before the festival, bringing in students, giving them space to discuss several sensitive issues, said Nazarali. For example, conversations about youth employment, food security, education, and others.
"It provided a space and platform to amplify human rights and highlight sensitive issues especially in the Eswatini context, where GBV is still taboo, abortion is illegal, in a context where LGBTQI + is also taboo," she said. "It moves the needle forward on human rights."
Bongile Khanya, an assistant head of the Bring Your Fire Zone department with the festival, called the partnership a natural fit.
"I think that the partnership has actually emphasized what the Bushfire festival has been about, which is about social activism, to be able to address issues that we're faced with in terms of our social environment," she said. "So, it's not just about a big festival, but it's about driving social change and social activism. I think the partnership with the UN legitimized this."
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Bring your fire
Mncedisi Dlamni is from Young Heroes, an NGO which works with orphaned and vulnerable children in Eswatini. For the last 16 years, the group has been one of the beneficiaries of Bushfire's partnership programme. This year, Dlamni says his NGO has been able to use the funding received to provide more access to job opportunities and training for young people.
Melusi Matsenjwa works with the Eswatini Council of Churches, one of the NGOs with a booth at the festival. He said the partnership with the UN was a natural relationship because it gave them the chance to speak to a wide variety of audiences across Africa as well as Europe. Their focus was to make sure that people understood what the church does in terms of human rights, specifically and especially in terms of offering legal aid.
"We think it's a beautiful space where we can reach, particularly the middle class, because the programmes we do are for the grassroots," he said. "And this is a captive audience, so that's why we are here."
