The Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) joined forces with the Next 48 Hours and the Desmond Tutu and Leah Legacy Foundation to prepare a feast for over 1600 women, who attended the 8th Women’s Humanity Arts Festival on the 9 August 2014 at Artscape. The festival includes, as it has for the past seven years, the disabled community, the disenfranchised community and women and men from all walks of life.
According to CTICC Acting Chief Executive Officer, Aage Hansen, the chefs at the centre will be hard at work cooking over 300 kilograms of chicken and more than 200 kilograms of rice for the main meal that will be served at the festival.
“The CTICC boasts one of the largest and most advanced kitchens in the Western Cape and has extensive experience in large scale catering,” says Hansen. “As a convention centre that is committed to uplifting and empowering the communities in which it operates, the CTICC is excited to be able to lend a helping hand to this worthy initiative,” he adds.
Some of the prestigious events and conferences that the CTICC has successfully catered to include the Cape Town International Jazz Festival, which attracts in excess of 33 000 people, the 19th International Diabetes Federation Congress in 2006, where it provided over 12 000 meals to conference delegates and the Investing in African Mining Indaba, where the centre provides over 7000 meals daily.
Naushad Khan, Editor of the Next 48 Hours says that the centre was the perfect partner to assist with the catering for this festival. “The CTICC’s expertise in large volume catering and cooking for the masses was one of the core reasons that we approached them to partner with us on this event,” he says. “Having everyone eat lunch together means a lot to us. People from all parts of Cape Town and outlying areas attend this event and often they don’t have the means to bring a packed lunch or money to buy something to eat,” he adds.
“The theme of this year’s festival is “humanity” and the objective is to celebrate and salute those women, who actively strive to better their own lives and the lives of countless other women in our society today,” explains Marlene Le Roux, Artscape’s director of Audience Development and Education. “The Artscape Women’s Humanity Arts Festival is Artscape’s response to highlight the lack of “humanity”, which marginalized groups face on a daily basis in South Africa, with particular emphasis on women and the disabled”, concludes Le Roux.
