In addition to valuing the impact of the Indoni Festival, one of the aims of this research was to test the Framework for the Monitoring and Evaluation of Publically Funded Arts, Culture and Heritage (SACO, 2016).
Indoni SA is a non-profit organisation with a focus on youth empowerment through the celebration of traditional African cultural heritage. The theme of the Indoni Youth Festival was “My Heritage, My Pride”. Using the Framework for the Monitoring and Evaluation of Publically Funded Arts, Culture and Heritage (SACO, 2016), this study used interviews with audiences and organisers to evaluate the Festival.
The research results showed that Festival audiences were mostly from UKZN, but were diverse in terms of their gender, age and income groups. There was also cultural diversity in terms of both audience cultural groups and in the participants and performers in both the Street Carnival and the Miss Cultural SA event. A very high percentage of audiences agreed or strongly agreed that the Festival is important for educating young people about traditional cultural heritage.
A very high percentage of the audience agreed or strongly agreed with statements relating to the value of the Indoni Festival in terms of social cohesion. For example, 96% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the Festival improves understanding between different cultural groups. A slightly smaller proportion, but still the vast majority (91%), agreed or strongly agreed that the Festival reflects the cultural diversity of South Africa.
The Festival is also successful in getting audiences to think about their culture and heritage “in a different way”, with 91% of respondents agreeing (28.9%) or strongly agreeing (62.2%) with the statement. This is an important result in that it shows that Indoni has some success in reshaping views, and educating audiences, about cultural heritage and traditions.
The economic impact analysis showed that the 2016 Festival had an economic impact of between R25.3m and R31.9m on the economy of Durban. Overall, the Indoni Festival was shown to have successfully met its stated aims.
