Sawa Sawa Festival

Sarakasi Trust initiated the concept of the annual Sawa Sawa Festival to create a unique festival with an African identity appealing to the Kenyan public at large while at the same time creating an opportunity to reach out to audiences across age, gender, cultural and economical back grounds.

Sawa Sawa aims to promote and stage the performing arts through several platforms like workshops, exchanges between local and international artistes, technical skill and cultural sharing workshops, community building (theme) activities, jam sessions/studio recordings, media activations and the multi stage multi day concerts.

The Sawa Sawa Festival attracts audiences of over 100,000 people. To date two documentaries about the festival have been produced. Always at hand to spice up the event are the Sarakasi All Stars, showcasing the best in acrobatics and dance. Each year Sarakasi’s projects like Wapi, Amani Lazima, the Hospital Project and others are offered a platform in the festival as well.

Being a family event, lots of fun activities for kids are part of the programming. The 7th edition of the annual festival was held on 21st December 2013 at Arboretum from 10am to 6pm. Themed around #WeAreOne- Kenya @50, the festival had an exclusive East African line up in order to embrace the Spirit Of Togetherness.