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A get together for Unity fun

Kate Speedie
10/ 7/2003

SOUTH Manchester was united last weekend with another hugely successful Unity Festival that entertained visitors in Chorlton Park.

The big top arrived and was constructed for the three-day event and even the weather turned out well with no spirits dampened by rain. It was the ninth annual celebration of cultural diversity and people from across the city and every different background joined in the fun.

The entertainment was for adults and children alike, with music, arts, dance and crafts being performed and demonstrated across the park.

Poets and writers gave readings, kids teams battled it out in a football tournament and everyone was able to have a go at banner-making, drumming and Samba in the various workshops.

Elizabeth Harding is spokesperson for the festival and she said: "The Unity Festival is always Manchester at its most colourful. It is a chance to celebrate the wonderful variety this city has to offer. Throughout its history that diversity has been the lifeblood of Manchester and events like Unity help to ensure that it will remain so.

"Over the past decade Manchester has once again become dynamic and vivid place, we want it to be welcoming. Unity is all those things. It shouts 'no' to racism and 'yes' to all cultures."

The Unity Festival, set up in 1994 in response to the rise in racist violence and as a way of bringing people together, is now an established date in Manchester's calendar of events.

It is run by volunteers and community activists and the festival regularly attracts around 20,000 people who come along to enjoy the activities.