“Nu has a whole zone to take care of our house and a whole Kumunidadi to take care of our family", 

Dominick Donk

There is a place - a dirt road, a courtyard where we played ouril in the evening, or a balcony where we listened to music and stories of Blimundo, the islands' fearless hero - that holds our first steps, our fears and our purest dreams. In Cape Verde, we call this place kumunidadi. It's not just the neighbourhood and it's certainly not just made up of neighbours. It's the invisible embrace that brought us up. It's where, despite all the absences, we grew up whole.

Also available at: https://www.balai.cv/balai-style/todos-nos-temos-uma-kumunidadi-que-sustentou-a-nossa-criacao/

We all come from a kumunidadi And with every new path we take, we carry this feeling of belonging and security in our luggage. 

We grew up with the unwritten rules of respect, with the watchful eyes of those who cared even without saying so. We learnt to fall and to get up, to share and to dream big. It was there that we gained strength from a shared life - from the grandmother who taught with her gaze, from the neighbour who lent a ball, from the aunt who sold fresh produce so that her children could study.

But it was also there that we learnt who we are - after all, our roots aren't just in the history books. They are in the smell of the wet earth after the first rain, in the flavour of the cachupa warmed up the next day, in the drumming in the distance that heralded a party, in the tocatinas in the late afternoon or even in the storytelling at the door at dusk. It's all there - the past and the future, woven together like a fine braid.

The concept of Kumunidadi Fest is born from these roots that we all share, this feeling of a time that can only be described collectively. It's a reunion with what we are - and perhaps with what we should never have ceased to be.

A Kumunidadi Fest is a living tribute to the communities that, without even knowing it, have created leaders, artists, athletes and thinkers. On 21 June, Ponta D'Água will not just be celebrating art, sport or urban culture. It will celebrate the ability to resist without hardening, to create without resources, to undertake even with empty hands. Above all, it will revive the spirit from which we came, with the certainty that it lives on. 

This is the moment when we celebrate the power of all communities and their effect on identity and ability to create collective empowerment for social transformation.

In this symbolic and real space, difficulties are not obstacles: they are raw material. They are what make us creative. They turn lack into opportunity. They turn talent into a path to change. That's why initiatives like Kumunidadi Empreende or the Kumunidadi Games are much more than activities. They are manifestations of each neighbourhood's capacity to be a laboratory of life, to train resilient, aware young people who are ready to transform the world with their feet firmly planted in their origins.

There, it is taught that "doing well" is not about forgetting where you came from, but about carrying that place with you, on your chest, like a flag.

By honouring Ponta D'Água, we honour all the kumunidadis - from Cape Verde to Brazil, from Africa to the world - who hold on to their children even when the rest of the world pushes them to the corners. 

A Kumunidadi Fest that's what it is: a place where everyone belongs. 

More than ever, the world needs these seeds, because it's in the kumunidadi to build the world we want. 

We all have a kumunidadi that sustained our "creation" and perhaps it's time to record this feeling for future generations. With presence. With action. With pride.

From Brazil, the Central Única das Favelas (Single Centre of Favelas) declaims "Favela é Potência" (Favela is Power).

In Cape Verde, we say "Kumunidadi is Resilience"!