Arts and Crafts
Arts and crafts from all over Africa were on display at Africa Day Limerick.
Visitors to the 'Arts and Crafts' area had an opportunity to explore displays of colourful crafts; view an exhibition of photographs from Nigeria, browse stalls selling a range of African artefacts, such as masks, bowls, baskets, table-cloths and jewellery, and see an African Art Exhibition.
Details of the various exhibits were as follows:
African Art Exhibition
This exhibition was produced by the News Communities Partnership jointly with Abraham Lawal, an African art promoter based in New Ross, Co. Wexford.
The African Art Exhibition featured work from various tribes in Africa, including the Ashanti of Ghana; the Baluba in the Congo - who specialise in carved images of women holding bowls - the Fang group; the Bambara of West Africa, who are famous for their elaborate head-dresses; the Dogon people of West Africa; the Bakuba who are well known for their royal portrait carvings; sculptural figurines of the Baule people from the Ivory Coast; the Nok peoples of central and north Nigeria, and the Yoruba, one of the tribes who are most prolific in producing African art.
For more information on the New Communities Partnership, see:
www.newcommunities.ie.
Photograph Exhibition by Colm O'Molloy 
Colm O'Molloy is an independent Irish photographer and journalist based in London. He has lived and worked in a number of countries across Southeast and Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and West Africa. His work primarily deals with the complex relationships between environmental degradation and change, conflict and the implications for developing countries of an increasingly globalised economy.
Between 2006 and 2009, he spent over eight months documenting various aspects of life in Nigeria. The showcase of prints presented as part of Irish Aid's Africa Day 2010 events in Dublin and Limerick are from 2009 were taken from a series of essays set in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, the Middle-Belt city of Jos, and Dutse in the far North of the country. The images were of children happily at play, despite a backdrop of often extreme adversity.
More images taken by Colm in Nigeria are available to view here.
Friends of Mali Ireland
Friends of Mali Ireland displayed and sold traditional Malian arts and crafts at Africa Day Limerick, including hung Bogolans (cloth hangings painted with dyes made from Niger river-bank mud), cooking utensils, leather goods, jewelery and clothing.
Friends of Mali is a small development organisation, founded in 2008, with the primary aim of supporting a small number of projects in communities in Mali. The organisation is currently working with the Tuareg people of the village of Tin Gnere; children in the Yeredeme / Fonds pour l'Education project in Mopti, and on a proposed tree-planting project in the town of Segou.
For more information, click here.
Jabula Crafts 
A kaleidescope of colour, creeds and social backgrounds make up the South African nation, creating an extraordinarily complex society and a patchwork of food, styles, arts and crafts. South Africa is truly unique, not only for its spectacular beauty, but also for the amazing number of innovative artists producing out-of-the ordinary items.
Jabula is a company that specialises in South African food and crafts. It has stores in Dublin and Cork, and purchases can also be made through its website, www.jabula.ie.
At Africa Day Limerick, Jabula displayed and sold an array of crafts and beauty products, along with South African food items.