The Zimbabwe Diaspora Arts Festival, showcased a number of activities including a fashion show, dance and poetry.

Present were people from various African countries including, Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, the United States and Zimbabwe.

One of the participants, visual artist, Ogulola Olajide from Nigeria said he showcased some of his artefacts and was happy with the response from some of the participants.

“This is a very interesting festival that allows cross-pollination of arts and culture from Africans across the American Diaspora,” he said.

Some of the participants said they were happy that the festival would preserve culture and promote it for those Africans born in the Diaspora who will be able to connect with the motherland even though they would not have been born there.

After the festival I sat down with one of the organizers, Tsitsi Madzongwe, who says it may be called the Zimbabwe Diaspora Festival, but it draws Africans across the whole continent because they have similar culture.

“It was our first festival. I would like to say it was good but not good … there are a lot of things. We are at our infancy stage as you know that it was our first festival. There are a lot of changes that we are going to input into the structures to make it bigger and more interesting,” she said.

According to the American Immigration Council, Maryland is one of the states with the highest number of African immigrants, including California, New York, Texas and Virginia. 

These are mostly from Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, and Kenya.