Kopen Take PII Festival

The people from Enga Province will celebrate their unique cultures, exhibit tourism products and services to both domestic and international tourists.  

The cultural festival will coincide with the official opening of Haus Man (Traditional Engan man’s house) and Cultural Research Centre for displaying of cultural objects/artifacts, tourism products.

Executive Director of National Cultural Commission Steven Kilanda opened the Kopen Take Pii festival and congratulated community leaders for taking the initiative to register the festival.

He also commended them for establishing a cultural center in their area and thanked Enga Governor Sir Peter Ipatas for his leadership in ensuring culture is featured prominently in the province.

Enga boasts of a well-researched and archived cultural center known as “Take Anda or the House of Wisdom”.

He said culture and tourism are important assets of Papua New Guinea and almost 90 per cent of tourists come into the country under cultural activities and programs.

“When our renewal and non-renewal resources run out, our fall back is our culture and agriculture sectors. That’s why we must look to develop, revive and preserve our cultures and traditions that will support our livelihood in the future,” Sir Ipatas said.

Minister Isi Henry Leonard said Papua New Guinea is unique and diverse and has a lot of potential for tourism opportunities, but the challenge today of the Covid-19 pandemic is far greater and the only way to overcome the adverse effect is to promote local tourism in the country.

“Let’s make it easy and simple by going back to the village to promote our culture. In tourism, variety is important. This country has a great potential so we need to revive our cultures by dedicating more time to it,” Minister Leonard said.

The launch of the Kopen Take Pii festival is quite unique from the other cultural festivals that have been launched and packaged by the National Cultural Commission of Papua New Guinea. It is unique in the sense that the festival, when fully developed, will include visits to ritual sites and ceremonial grounds where stories of the significance of the sites will be told.