Hibiscus festival! – Pacific Outreach

Hibiscus festival!

posted August 30th

Milika

Hibiscus is one of Fiji’s best known festivals & takes place every August in the capital, Suva. Various businesses, charities & projects set up exhibition tents in Albert Park to show to the public what they’re up to, while there are many children’s rides & other fairground activities, along with live music & a beauty contest at the very end to keep everyone entertained. (Also lots of restaurants, like Mykal’s Curry Kona that we wrote about last time!). Proceeds from all the rented tents go to charity.

Our good friends & trustees of our Pacific Outreach Fiji charity, Analesi Tuicaumia & Milika Waqanisau, were also highly involved as they had a large tent to highlight their very popular & ever-growing ‘Little Ones’ preschools. Due to our close link with Little Ones, we were able to march along with them in the Hibiscus Carnival March: the grand finale of the festival week when colourful floats are paraded through Suva’s main street, while many thousands of cheering spectators look on.

Analesi

It was the first time we’ve done this & it was truly a remarkable experience as well as a marvelous opportunity for publicity! As you can see in the photo, we got special Fijian costumes made for the event, along with straw hats, although these tended to blow off from time to time, to the amusement of onlookers!

The whole carnival march was also shown live on TV for the rest of Fiji, so all in all it was a great witness for our charity.