By Simpson Global Media News Desk
The Nigerian capital Abuja is set to become a meeting point for children's creativity, cultural expression and heritage education as the International Children Creative and Culture Festival (ICCCF 3.0) holds from September 24 to 26, bringing children aged 7 to 15 together for three days of competitions, workshops, storytelling, music, indigenous fashion and cultural performances.
The third edition of the festival is being organised by Dr. Ngozi Akande and will take place at two Abuja venues: the NCAC Arts and Craft Village in the Central Business District from September 24 to 25 and the NTIC Conference Hall in Wuse 2 for the awards and closing ceremony on September 26.
The organisers describe the 2026 edition as a platform built around the theme of children, creativity, identity and opportunity. Its programme combines five principal competitive activities — cultural performances, drawing and painting, indigenous fashion, mother-language activities and a spelling bee — with practical workshops in areas including Adire making and gypsum eco-craft.
The festival comes at a time when cultural institutions and international organisations are placing renewed emphasis on the preservation and transmission of Nigeria's living heritage.
Only days before the festival, UNESCO highlighted the importance of community-based approaches to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage in Nigeria after a capacity-building workshop in Nasarawa State focused on the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage.
The convergence of those developments places a familiar cultural question in a new setting: how can traditions be preserved while ensuring that younger generations do not encounter them only as objects in museums or subjects in textbooks, but as living practices they can understand, practise and reinterpret?
Children take centre stage
Unlike many cultural events that primarily showcase established artists and performers, ICCCF is designed around children as participants rather than simply spectators.
The festival's official programme is targeted at children between seven and 15 years old.
Its cultural-performance competition will invite schools to present dance, music and drama around the theme “Unity in Diversity.”
The drawing and painting competition will use the theme “Seeds of Peace, One World Many Colours,” giving young artists an opportunity to interpret ideas about coexistence and diversity through visual art.
The indigenous fashion competition carries the theme “Show Your SWAG,” with children expected to present traditional fabrics, colours and beadwork associated with the cultures represented by participating schools.
The mother-language competition, under the theme “Know Your Language,” is intended to encourage children to speak, recite and perform in their indigenous languages.
A spelling bee, meanwhile, will focus on Nigerian landmarks under the theme “Know Your National Landmarks.”
The organisers say registered schools can enter the five competitions without paying separate competition-entry fees. Four of the events are entered through schools, while drawing and painting is also open to individual participants who book a workshop place.
The structure gives the festival a broader cultural purpose than a conventional arts competition.
A child taking part in a cultural dance is not only performing choreography.
The child is also encountering costume, music, movement and collective memory.
A child using an indigenous language in a competition is participating in an exercise that connects language with identity.
A child modelling traditional fabric is encountering cultural design through a contemporary presentation.
A young artist interpreting peace or diversity through painting is using a modern artistic medium to engage with social themes.
That combination is central to the festival's design.
Culture through participation
Cultural education is often most effective when children can participate directly.
Reading about traditional crafts provides one kind of knowledge.
Making an object, learning a traditional pattern, listening to a story from an older generation or performing a song provides another.
The ICCCF programme incorporates that participatory approach through its practical workshops.
The organisers have scheduled hands-on sessions in Adire making and gypsum eco-craft, alongside storytelling, book reading, music and folktales.
Students who book the workshop programme will be able to participate in the activities across the festival period.
The workshop fee listed by the organisers is ₦30,000 per student, while school registration for the competition programme is listed at ₦50,000 per school, covering up to 10 students.
The organisers also say donations are being sought to provide art materials, workshop places and assistance for children who may otherwise be unable to attend.
The practical component matters because traditional knowledge is often transmitted through demonstration.
Textiles are learned through handling fabric, observing patterns and practising techniques.
Craft skills are developed through repetition.
Music and dance depend on rhythm, movement and instruction.
Oral traditions depend on listening and speaking.
Languages remain alive when they are used.
The festival's workshop structure therefore connects cultural preservation with creative practice.
From classroom to cultural space
The decision to hold activities at the NCAC Arts and Craft Village also gives the programme a direct connection to Nigeria's institutional cultural infrastructure.
The venue is being used for workshops and competitions on September 24 and 25, while the closing and awards programme will take place at the NTIC Conference Hall in Wuse 2 on September 26.
According to the festival organisers, the NCAC Arts and Craft Village is located in Abuja's Central Business District, behind the Shehu Musa Yar'Adua Centre and beside Silverbird Galleria.
The final-day ceremony is scheduled for the NTIC Conference Hall at 31 Monrovia Street, Wuse 2.
The two-venue structure allows the festival to combine practical arts activities with a larger closing event.
It also places cultural activities within spaces already associated with education, arts and public engagement.
For participating schools, the festival can function as an extension of classroom learning.
Students can meet peers from other schools, encounter different cultural expressions and see artistic disciplines presented competitively.
Teachers and parents can also observe children's interests outside conventional academic subjects.
A programme built around diversity
Nigeria's cultural diversity is reflected directly in the festival's programme.
The country has hundreds of languages and numerous cultural traditions expressed through clothing, food, music, dance, crafts, oral literature and religious and social practices.
A festival involving children from different parts of Nigeria therefore has the potential to make diversity visible in a way that ordinary classroom lessons may not.
The organisers' choice of “Unity in Diversity” for the cultural-performance competition is particularly relevant to that objective.
The concept does not require participants to erase their individual cultural identities.
Instead, different identities become part of a shared national event.
That approach is also consistent with the festival's mother-language component.
Rather than requiring children to leave indigenous languages outside the competition environment, the programme makes language itself part of the cultural showcase.
The distinction is important because language is not simply a communication tool.
It carries expressions, proverbs, oral histories, humour, names, songs and forms of knowledge that may be difficult to reproduce fully through translation.
When children use their mother tongues publicly, they are also demonstrating that those languages have a place in contemporary educational and cultural spaces.
UNESCO's renewed focus on living heritage
The festival's timing coincides with renewed attention to Nigeria's intangible cultural heritage.
UNESCO reported on September 18 that it had strengthened support for Nigeria's capacity to safeguard living cultural heritage following a four-day workshop held from August 26 to 29 in Nasarawa State.
The workshop focused on the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and brought together 20 participants from Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Tourism and the Creative Economy, the National Institute for Cultural Orientation, the National Commission for UNESCO and cultural civil society organisations, alongside resource persons.
The workshop examined practical approaches to community-based safeguarding, including inventorying cultural heritage, identifying elements requiring safeguarding, preparing nomination files and developing measures that respond to community needs.
UNESCO's approach places communities and practitioners at the centre of safeguarding.
That principle is significant because intangible cultural heritage is different from a physical monument.
A building can be conserved as a structure.
An artefact can be stored in a museum.
But a dance, oral tradition, craft technique, language practice or traditional performance survives only when people continue to practise and transmit it.
The UNESCO workshop therefore emphasized not merely documentation but continued practice and transmission.
A children's cultural festival operates at that transmission point.
Passing knowledge to a new generation
The survival of cultural practices depends partly on whether young people find meaningful ways to encounter them.
If traditional crafts remain confined to specialist circles, their transmission can weaken.
If indigenous languages are rarely used outside family settings, younger speakers may have fewer opportunities to practise them.
If traditional music and dance are treated only as historical material, children may learn about them without learning how to perform them.
Events such as ICCCF attempt to create spaces in which cultural knowledge becomes active.
A child learning Adire making is not simply viewing a textile.
A child performing a cultural dance is not simply watching a cultural dance.
A child speaking a mother tongue is not simply reading about language preservation.
The experience can help connect heritage with memory and personal participation.
The organisers' stated objective of giving children opportunities to express who they are through culture and creativity reflects that approach.
Lessons from the second edition
The 2026 festival builds on an earlier edition held in Abuja from September 25 to 27, 2025.
The organisers' archive records more than 70 participants registered for ICCCF 2.0, with 80 young painters taking part in the painting competition.
Ten paintings were selected for further recognition, while about 200 guests attended the final ceremony.
The 2025 edition included painting, ceramics, cultural dance, spoken word, violin performance and fashion-related activities.
The event also included children from an IDP camp in Abuja through a Book Buddies side activity.
The organisers say every participant received a certificate, while winners received awards.
The previous edition provided the foundation for the larger 2026 programme.
The organisers have expanded the competition structure and added a more explicit emphasis on mother languages, indigenous fashion and Nigerian landmarks.
That suggests an evolution from a primarily arts-focused children's festival toward a broader cultural and educational platform.
Art as a tool for confidence and expression
Children's art can provide a space for forms of expression that are difficult to capture through conventional academic assessment.
A painting can communicate how a child understands a place, person or experience.
A performance can allow a child to work with rhythm, movement and collaboration.
A spoken-word presentation can combine language, memory and emotion.
A fashion presentation can explore colour, fabric and cultural identity.
The festival's combination of disciplines gives children multiple routes into participation.
Not every child is drawn to painting.
Another may prefer dance.
Another may be comfortable speaking in a mother tongue.
Another may have an interest in fashion or public performance.
By providing different categories, the festival allows cultural engagement to happen through several creative forms.
The organisers' wider programme also includes spoken word and poetry, storytelling and book reading, music and folktales.
The importance of indigenous fashion
The indigenous fashion component is particularly relevant to the relationship between culture and contemporary creativity.
Traditional fabrics, beadwork, embroidery, headwear and clothing styles are not static.
They can be adapted into new designs while retaining elements that identify cultural origins.
For children, presenting indigenous fashion on a festival platform can turn clothing into an entry point for discussing history and identity.
It also exposes young participants to the creative possibilities of textiles.
Nigeria has established textile traditions across its regions, including weaving, dyeing, embroidery and decorative techniques.
Adire, for example, is associated strongly with Yoruba textile heritage and has become increasingly visible in contemporary fashion.
Including Adire making in the workshop programme places a traditional craft inside a hands-on learning environment.
The activity also demonstrates that heritage crafts can exist simultaneously as cultural practices, artistic forms and potential creative-economy skills.
Mother language as cultural heritage
The festival's mother-language competition is another distinctive component.
Its theme, “Know Your Language,” is designed to encourage children to speak, recite and perform in their mother tongues.
The activity connects language with public confidence.
Children who use indigenous languages on stage demonstrate that those languages can be used for formal performance as well as informal communication.
This is relevant to Nigeria's multilingual environment, where children may move between local languages, English and Nigerian Pidgin depending on their homes, schools and communities.
A mother-language event can encourage children to view linguistic diversity as an asset.
It can also give teachers and parents a reason to discuss vocabulary, oral literature, proverbs and traditional expressions.
The festival does not present language preservation as a purely academic exercise.
It makes language something children can perform.
Storytelling and the oral tradition
Storytelling is another element of the festival that connects contemporary children with older forms of cultural transmission.
Before widespread access to digital media, oral storytelling served as a major means of passing history, moral lessons, humour, folklore and community knowledge between generations.
Today, children have access to television, social media, streaming services, video games and online educational content.
That does not eliminate the value of storytelling.
Instead, it raises the question of how traditional storytelling can coexist with contemporary media.
The ICCCF programme includes storytelling and book reading as part of its broader creative activities.
That creates an opportunity for oral traditions and written literature to share the same cultural space.
A child can listen to a folktale and then encounter another story through a book.
Both experiences can contribute to literacy and cultural understanding.
Creativity and the digital generation
The children participating in the 2026 festival are growing up in a digital environment.
Many are familiar with smartphones, social media, video platforms and digital entertainment.
That environment has changed the way young people encounter culture.
A cultural performance can now be recorded and distributed to audiences far beyond the event venue.
A traditional textile design can be photographed and shared internationally.
A children's artwork can become part of an online gallery.
A spoken-word performance can reach viewers who were not physically present.
The digital environment therefore creates both challenges and opportunities for cultural transmission.
It can expose children to global culture, but it can also provide tools for documenting and sharing local traditions.
A festival like ICCCF can become more than a physical event if its participants' work is preserved digitally.
The organisers already maintain online archives of previous editions, including photographs, artworks and festival information.
From local participation to international exposure
The festival's organisers also connect the programme with international children's arts initiatives.
The ICCCF website highlights the case of Adaeze Onwubiko, identified as the winner of the 2024 Art Olympiad, who is set to join a Nigerian troupe travelling to the World Children's Festival in Washington, D.C.
The organisers present that pathway as part of a broader effort to ensure that Nigerian children's artistic achievements can move beyond the immediate festival environment.
That international dimension can change the meaning of participation.
A local competition becomes an opportunity to build experience for wider cultural exchange.
It also demonstrates how children's arts programmes can operate as part of cultural diplomacy without being designed primarily as diplomatic events.
Young participants become cultural representatives through the work they create and the traditions they present.
Building cultural confidence
The festival's organisers say its programme is intended to give children opportunities to express their identities and develop creative confidence.
That objective is reflected in the combination of competition and workshop activities.
Competitions provide public recognition.
Workshops provide learning.
Performances provide exposure.
The cultural components provide identity.
The educational components provide skills.
Taken together, they create an environment in which children can experiment without the expectation that every participant must become a professional artist.
That distinction is important.
Cultural education does not need to produce professional dancers, painters, fashion designers or musicians in order to have value.
It can help children develop appreciation for artistic disciplines and cultural heritage even if their eventual careers lie elsewhere.
The role of schools
Schools occupy a central position in the festival's structure.
Four of the five main competitions are entered through participating schools, and each organisation or school may enter up to 10 students according to the festival's published rules.
That makes schools important gatekeepers for participation.
It also gives teachers a role in identifying students who may benefit from the opportunity.
The school-based approach can help organise large numbers of children and make participation more structured.
At the same time, it means access may depend partly on whether schools are aware of the programme and able to participate.
The organisers have also provided an individual route into the drawing and painting competition through workshop registration.
The combination of school and individual participation is intended to widen access while retaining an organised structure for the competitions.
Supporting children who may face barriers
The organisers are also seeking donations to help provide materials, workshop places and support for children who may otherwise be unable to participate.
That is relevant because cultural participation can carry costs.
Transportation, materials, registration, clothing and workshop fees can become barriers for families and schools with limited resources.
A cultural programme that aims to reach children across social and economic backgrounds therefore needs mechanisms for inclusion.
The festival's sponsorship and donation model is one response.
Its stated objective is to help more children participate rather than limiting access to those who can independently meet all associated costs.
Culture and the wider Nigerian creative economy
The festival is also taking place against a wider national discussion about the economic potential of culture and creativity.
Nigeria's creative industries include film, music, fashion, visual arts, publishing, advertising, design, crafts and other cultural activities.
Children participating in cultural programmes today may become tomorrow's artists, producers, designers, writers, performers, curators, cultural entrepreneurs or creative-technology professionals.
But the relationship between childhood cultural education and the creative economy is not automatic.
Young people need opportunities to develop skills, access education and find sustainable professional pathways.
Events such as ICCCF can provide an early stage of that ecosystem by allowing children to discover interests and build basic creative experience.
The longer-term challenge is creating institutions and markets that can support those interests as participants grow older.
Connecting heritage with innovation
Cultural preservation does not necessarily mean keeping traditions unchanged.
UNESCO's approach to intangible cultural heritage recognizes that living traditions are practised, transmitted and renewed by communities.
That distinction matters for a young generation.
A traditional craft can be taught using modern educational methods.
A folk song can be performed on a contemporary stage.
An indigenous language can be used in spoken-word poetry.
Traditional clothing can appear in modern fashion.
A historical story can be adapted into film or digital animation.
The key issue is whether the underlying cultural knowledge remains connected to the communities that practise it.
The ICCCF programme's combination of heritage-oriented activities and contemporary creative competitions reflects that kind of interaction.
A cultural calendar looking toward FESTAC at 50
Nigeria is also preparing for the 50th anniversary of FESTAC '77, the major African and Black arts and culture festival held in Lagos in 1977.
The Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization says the 2027 Golden Jubilee will commemorate the event's legacy and is being developed through the Road to FESTAC '77 @ 50 initiative.
According to CBAAC, FESTAC '77 involved more than 17,000 participants from 59 Black African countries and communities and left enduring cultural legacies including the FESTAC mask, the National Theatre and CBAAC itself.
The agency says its 2025–2027 initiative combines heritage preservation, creative innovation, policy dialogue, diaspora engagement, youth empowerment and legacy-building.
The timing creates a broader context for children's cultural programmes.
As Nigeria prepares to reflect on a major historic celebration of African culture, younger generations are being introduced to culture through new platforms and formats.
The connection between the two developments is not that ICCCF is part of FESTAC's official programme.
Rather, both reflect the continuing question of how Nigeria's cultural heritage can be transmitted to future generations.
What happens during the three days
The festival programme begins on September 24 with arrival, registration and art workshops at the NCAC Arts and Craft Village.
September 25 is scheduled for the opening ceremony and the five competitive events.
The final day, September 26, moves to the NTIC Conference Hall for awards and the closing ceremony.
The organisers say winners will be announced on September 26.
The programme therefore moves from participation and learning to competition and finally recognition.
The arrangement also gives children multiple opportunities to engage.
Some will compete.
Others will participate in workshops.
Others will attend as members of school delegations or audiences.
Parents, teachers and cultural practitioners can also participate in the broader festival environment.
Beyond the prizes
Awards are an important part of a children's festival, but the organisers' programme suggests that the event is intended to have a broader educational purpose.
A child may not win a competition but still leave with a new skill.
A participant may discover an interest in painting.
Another may learn a traditional textile technique.
Another may become more confident speaking a mother tongue.
Another may learn about a Nigerian landmark while preparing for the spelling bee.
Another may encounter a cultural tradition from another part of the country for the first time.
Those experiences are difficult to measure in a competition table, but they form part of the cultural value of the programme.
The organisers' archive of the 2025 edition records certificates for participants and describes the festival as a platform for creativity, teamwork and cultural appreciation.
The question of continuity
The long-term value of a cultural festival depends partly on what happens after the closing ceremony.
Children return to their schools.
Workshops end.
Awards are collected.
Performances conclude.
The challenge then becomes how to keep the knowledge alive.
Schools can continue art clubs.
Parents can encourage children to use indigenous languages.
Communities can continue storytelling.
Young artists can keep producing work.
Cultural organisations can maintain archives.
Digital platforms can preserve photographs and recordings.
Government institutions can support cultural education.
Museums and cultural centres can provide spaces where children encounter heritage beyond festival days.
The organisers' decision to maintain an archive of previous editions is one mechanism for continuity.
The broader cultural ecosystem will determine whether those experiences become sustained engagement.
A festival at a significant moment
ICCCF 3.0 arrives at a significant moment for Nigeria's cultural sector.
UNESCO is strengthening national capacity to safeguard living heritage.
Nigeria is preparing for the 50th anniversary of FESTAC '77 in 2027.
Cultural institutions are increasingly discussing how heritage, creativity, education and the creative economy intersect.
Against that background, a children's festival offers a reminder that cultural continuity ultimately depends on people.
Buildings can preserve history.
Museums can protect objects.
Archives can preserve documents.
But living traditions require people to continue practising them.
Children are among the people who will make that continuation possible.
What the Abuja gathering represents
The International Children Creative and Culture Festival is scheduled to bring together young Nigerians through art, language, fashion, music, storytelling and cultural performance.
Its five competitions cover different aspects of identity and creativity.
Its workshops provide practical engagement with crafts.
Its school-based structure connects cultural participation with education.
Its international links create opportunities for young artists to encounter audiences beyond Nigeria.
And its timing places it within a broader national and international conversation about cultural preservation.
The festival's central idea is straightforward: culture is not only something inherited from the past.
It is also something young people learn, practise and reshape.
For Nigeria, that distinction has practical significance.
The country's cultural heritage is extensive, but its continued relevance depends on transmission.
A traditional craft must have learners.
A language must have speakers.
A dance must have performers.
A story must have storytellers.
A song must have singers.
A cultural memory must have people willing to carry it forward.
The next generation of cultural custodians
The children arriving in Abuja for ICCCF 3.0 will come with different backgrounds, languages and creative interests.
Some will paint.
Some will dance.
Some will perform.
Some will model indigenous designs.
Some will speak their mother tongues.
Some will test themselves in the spelling bee.
Others will learn Adire or eco-craft through the workshop programme.
The activities may appear different, but they share a common function: giving young people opportunities to encounter culture through participation.
That is also the principle reflected in UNESCO's recent work on intangible cultural heritage, which emphasizes communities and practitioners as central to safeguarding traditions.
The Abuja festival therefore arrives not merely as another item on Nigeria's cultural calendar, but as part of a larger effort to ensure that heritage remains connected to younger generations.
Its success will ultimately be measured not only by the number of prizes awarded or performances staged, but by what participants take back to their schools, families and communities.
If a child returns home more confident using a mother tongue, continues painting after the competition, learns a traditional craft, shares a story with classmates or becomes curious about a cultural tradition from another Nigerian community, the festival will have extended beyond its three-day schedule.
That is the longer cultural story behind ICCCF 3.0.
As Abuja prepares to welcome the young participants from September 24 to 26, the festival will place children at the centre of a conversation that extends far beyond art competitions: how Nigeria's diverse cultural knowledge can be experienced, valued and transmitted by the generation that will carry it into the future.
The immediate programme is clear — five competitions, practical workshops, cultural performances, storytelling, music and an awards ceremony.
The larger objective is equally significant: to give young Nigerians a space where creativity and cultural identity can meet.
With Nigeria strengthening its institutional approach to safeguarding living heritage and preparing for major cultural milestones such as the 50th anniversary of FESTAC '77, the participation of children becomes increasingly important.
They are not simply audiences for cultural preservation.
Through language, art, fashion, performance, storytelling and craft, they can become active participants in the continuation of Nigeria's cultural life.
The third International Children Creative and Culture Festival will put that principle into practice in Abuja this week, bringing together young creators and cultural participants for three days of learning, performance, competition and exchange.
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