And not just ONE superkite, but dozens of them. Dotted across the blue skies, soaring higher, swooping down, looping the loop, and occasionally engaging in aeronautical skirmishes.  What's going on? If you trace down the tail, and keep your eyes on the faint black line, and follow it back down to earth, you'll see a small hand clutching at the string.  It's a kite runner from Mansura
 

For a whole week the kids of this community have been working away, building their kites, testing their skills, fine-tuning their designs.  With skill and ingenuity, they have created their kites from recycled materials: plastic bags, strips of word, scraps of fabric transformed into flying machines of beauty.  Each kite is unique - designed to reflect the personality of its creator. And then 30 young people  competed to be named " Champion Kite Flyer 2008", in the first ever "Mansoura Kite Cup Festival".

The Mansura Kite Festival is yet another exciting initiative from the Mansura Park Project.  It was the youth themselves who chose kite flying as a way to bring everyone together, to learn new skills, to build a team spirit and generally to have fun in the sun. They are based in the Mansura Gardens - a shared space for all the people of the area to enjoy nature.   Through the activities of the youth group, the Mansura garden has become a hub of activity. Young people play a leading role in animating the gardens: they meet their friends, they share experiences, they help each other learn new skills. Above all, they invite the rest of the community to come and see what they are up to: the kite festival is a way of saying 'Thank You" to the rest of the people who have helped them,.
 
Last week it was the time for the girls: they organized a fashion show to celebrate the traditional skills of stitching, embroidery and handicrafts. Before an audience of admiring and appreciative women (from grannies to babes in arms) they strutted their stuff on the catwalk among the cacti.
 
A couple of weeks before that, it was Mansura Movies. Almost the whole community came out into the gardens on a  warm summer evening to watch movies: See the Stars under the Stars.  Eating popcorn, enjoying the show: community cinema.

They haven't stopped: On saturday August 2, the meet again, this time to paint a mural depicting life in manura. Watch this space for the photos.

At the heart of the Mansura Park  Project is a group of some 15 young men and women from Mansura and nearby villages in Bani Kinana.   For the last 6 months they have been learning how to develop their potential - understanding how to work together as a team, and how to involve others in the processes.  They came up with a list of activities that they wanted to lead for the whole community. They are in charge; the success of the event is all down to their hard work. So, for the past week, they have been distributing leaflets, putting up posters and spreading the word about the Kite Festival. They hope to attract hundreds of guests  to share the fun. It's hard work, but they are gaining useful skills: how to plan, organize, manage, mobilize funds, market their event.  They hope that their actions will inspire others to get involved.

The young people from Mansura are taking the lead: they were trained by youth facilitators from PBYRC, and supported by funds from the Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF ), and now they are role models, not just in their own community, but also here in JOHUD. We are inspired by the energy and innovation. For more information about this project, click here

Using funds from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) the Mansura Park was set up in 2004, as a environment friendly / botanical garden in 2004.  It's now a valuable asset for the community: every weekend around a hundred people visit the park to have fun to relax.  For the weekend of July 26th, we expect the park to be packed: as people flock there to witness the struggle in the skies - and as the young kite flyers battle for the title: "Champion Kite Flyer  2008." Today it's Mansura, tomorrow the world.  Maybe some on-lookers will be inspired to take up the challenge.

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