From Friday afternoon until late Sunday evening this year’s Mela Festival was full of live at Rådhusplassen in Oslo. At The MiRA Centre’s tent this year, there was an information stand, a photo exhibit, free henna painting for children and quizzes in addition to many of our publications on sale.

Both volunteers and employees from The MiRA Centre were present throughout the whole weekend helping with whatever was necessary to assist visitors to our tent get the information they needed. We are very pleased that so many people came and visited our tent each day. Many people who were curious about our work received information and bought books, others wanted to join our network or just have a chat or discussion.

Many people who had read with disbelief about the reduced financial support to our work against forced marriage were worried and wanted to express their support for our work. Thank you!

Our volunteer henna painters decorated the hands of many children on Saturday and deserve a gold medal for making so many children happy and proud of the beautiful designs they received. A big thank you to you! We gladly noticed that many people were interested in looking at the exhibit showing MiRA Centre’s history and our own photo exhibit “Identity is my strength!”. When Sunday evening came, we were sold out of the majority of publications and had given away most of the brochures. We didn’t have any quizzes left, were out of buttons and all of the henna paint had been used. We take this as a good sign that the weekend was a success and that we should bring even more materials next year!