Bring Your Fire, bring your family! With a week to go until the 17th edition of the MTN Bushfire festival, taking place from 31 May – 2 June 2024 in Eswatini, MTN Bushfire has a vibrant, dynamic and educational programme for young Fire Starters!
MTN Bushfire is a family-friendly festival, where children of all ages can run wild and free in a secure, adventurous KidZone, overseen by experienced, vetted child-care workers and with an onsite health facility. Here, children and parents alike can explore and interact with stimulating and fun-filled activities, ranging from storytelling, sculpting and music workshops to high-energy lawn games.
Each year, the festival works with a special theme for the zone, that inspires creativity, engagement, and skills development for young people of all ages. This year’s theme, “African Safari”, is an environmentally conscious, fun, and interactive theme centered around conservation of wild African flora and fauna. Children will be able to explore rewilding and conservation themes through various activities in the spirit of the festival’s Green Your Fire environmental sustainability mandate.
Open on Saturday 1st June and Sunday 2nd June, from 10am to 6pm, the KidZone programme offers specially curated activities around the theme. These are expressed in the following areas in the KidZone:
The Big Game Parks Safari Tent area with planned fauna and flora identification trails, screening of the famous Jezebel movie about the adventures of Eswatini’s first conservation vehicle, and a birding sanctuary.
Young Fire Starters will also be treated to a traditional Swazi Village tour, courtesy of the Eswatini National Trust Commission, to reignite the old language of play and creative skillsets. This will be an opportunity to immerse in a museum of historic artefacts, traditional food tastings, storytelling, dance and forgotten traditional Swazi games, including mkoko, inketo, intjuba, ingcatfu and many more.
The Arts and Craft Savannah environment offers tactile workshops, including canvas painting, beading, sculpting and puppetry. Kids can also show off their talent on the Wilderness Stage, where there will be a range of interactive competitions as well as musical and theatrical showcases.
The KidZone Grazing Station is where to find delectable healthy foods and sweet treats, ranging from gourmet toasties to wild hotdogs, indigenous ice teas and decorated doughnuts.
Other activities include kids yoga, karaoke, skateboarding and drumming. Be sure to have a look at the KidZone programme and plan the day accordingly, to avoid missing out on all these fun and interactive activities!
Family campers will once again have their own secure and family-friendly camping areas, with the Family Camp having an almost exclusive gate to access the Main Arena, shared with Rush glamping. This shorter, more direct route is perfect for those little Fire Starters wanting to catch the early worm in the wild and wonder-filled MTN Bushfire KidZone.
The full festival line-up and all other information can be found on the website, www.bush-fire.com
