Ballarat African Association president Isaac Moses was excited to see the community enjoy delicious food, colourful dress and music at Federation University’s Mt Helen campus on Saturday. 

“People look so happy and that’s all we ask for, that’s all we need to do,” he said.

“We have this opportunity to just encourage the kids and everybody to be together and share our cultural way of life, it’s very important.”

Joy Juma from Kenya was part of a group that shared traditional dishes from the African countries represented in Ballarat, including Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda and South Sudan.

“Food is about sharing, coming together, loving each other and remembering home,” she said. 

“It also gives us a chance to market our food because if you have never eaten it before, next time you see it you’ll know what it is.”

Ms Juma said the festival had been broken into two parts, the formalities where dignitaries discussed the important issues affecting the African communities, and afterwards a celebration where attendees enjoyed food, music and dance.

“It is about educating the African community and making them aware of the services in place for them as far as violence and youth opportunities,” she said. 

“Police are offering the youth to be able to join the force, (it’s also about looking at initiatives for) education, early learning and language.” 

Members of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission were in attendance to offer information on their services and advice on what to do if rights had been breached. 

Justine Vaisutis said the commission had partnered with Victoria Police to work with vulnerable communities to ensure they did not face discrimination.

“We know that there has been a lot of media recently about African communities in Victoria, which is not particularly helpful or necessarily truthful,” she said.

“Both organisations are passionate about social cohesion and supporting those vulnerable communities.”