The recent online youth festival conducted by Alternative Integral Initiative for Mutual Support (AIIMS) Kuwait, won the honor of ‘World’s Largest Online Youth Festival for Expatriates’ in the America Book of Records.
The event, the first of its kind in Kuwait, was organized entirely on a virtual stage during the recent lockdown in the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The festival, organized from 1 June to 15 August across all six governorates of Kuwait, was conducted in two phases with 650 participants competing in phase one, in nine events and in six categories. The second phase was conducted with 210 finalists competing for the winners’ prizes.
When the country was in the midst of lockdown, AIIMS, an expatriate community of like-minded Indians in Kuwait, ventured forth with their online cultural potpourri with the aim of providing an opportunity to nurture the hidden talents of children who were confined to the four walls of their houses due to pandemic.
AIIMS chairman Babuji Bathery, along with Habeebulla Muttichoor, Sam Nanthiyattu, N.S. Jayan, Manikuttan Edukkatte, D.K. Dileep, Shaji Nagaroor, Mahesh Iyer, Joby Kaleekal, Ivy Alex, Sindhu Madhuraj, Sindhu Ramesh, T.R. Rajesh, Shaiju Vargheese, Jesny Shameer, Anoop Andrews, Ashraf Choorattu, Sumesh Sudhakaran, Basheer Koyilandi, were the volunteers who steered the different festival committees.