São Paulo – Starting on April 23 and 24, the city of São Paulo will have a permanent Arab festival on weekends at Rua Oriente, a traditional retail street in the Brás neighborhood. According to the initiative’s director, Valdir Alves da Silva Júnior, the goal is to establish the festival in the city’s cultural tour, just like it happened with Liberdade’s fair, which offers products from the Japanese culture on weekends and welcomes around 1,000 visitors in the period.
The Arab Festival is organized by the Islamic Entities National Union (UNI) and will have, in the beginning, 100 tents between the Monsenhor Andrade and Rodrigues dos Santos streets. The products for sale will be of Arab origin, such as desserts and snacks, handicrafts, clothing, rugs, among others. There will be, for instance, a tent with Egyptian art with statues of kings and gods of the Arab country, papyrus and marquetry inlaid pieces.
There will also be typical Arab cultural presentations every weekend, with music, dances or other type of performance in a stage set in the back of a truck. Throughout the day, when a concert is not taking place, a DJ will play Arab music. According to Júnior, the expectation is for the festival to welcome between 100,000 to 150,000 people per weekend.
In April, the festival will occupy only a block of the city, but it will gradually be expanded. The plan is to occupy the whole extension of the street Rua Oriente, 1,600 meters, and to set up 640 tents within the period of three months. The fair will be open on Saturdays and Sundays, from 10 AM to 10 PM.
Júnior explains that, initially, the festival was designed to promote the Arab culture and also to help the Arab refugees that are coming to Brazil. Planned by Júnior and by UNI’s cultural director, Jamel Bacha, they realized that it will be important to help not only the refugees but the Brazilians in general that are facing the challenges of unemployment. “It could generate revenues to a lot of people”, he says.
To have a tent in the festival, one needs to pay a rent of BRL 780 to 1,080 per month (USD 211.79 to 293), varying according to the placement of it. With the payment, the entrepreneur will have a tent supplied by the organization, with assembly and disassembly services, electric power for lighting and security services.
For those that can’t, initially, pay this price, Júnior and Bacha will offer a solidary loan, with no interest rates, to be paid as the business starts to generate revenues. The credit line is a personal initiative of Júnior and Bacha, within a project called Machine (www.projetomachive.com).
According to the festival’s director, the majority of the tents set to open in April, together with the festival’s inauguration, are already taken, but there are openings that will come with the expansion. Júnior says that from the spaces already reserved, half of them will be occupied by refugees.
The organization expects the festival to welcome a lot of people from the Arab community, but also Brazilians in general. “The Brazilian people is very open to the Arab culture”, says Júnior, saying that the Arab will feel at home in the festival. The event has the support of São Paulo’s City Hall and of the state government.
Arab Festival at Rua Oriente
Saturdays and Sundays, starting on April 23, 2016
Rua Oriente, between streets Monsenhor Andrade and Rodrigues dos Santos
Bairro do Brás – São Paulo – SP
From 10 AM to 10 PM
Further information: contato@festivalarabe.com.br
Website: http://www.festivalarabe.com.br/
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
