OASES NEWS:  People are curious to know when this year’s  Picnic is coming up and why the Picnic always take different patterns year to year

Olubunmi:   This year’s Picnic is coming up next week  August 13, 2016.  The Picnic has always enjoyed broad support from Africans

and non-Africans and is always certainly a very successful one every year because we always renew and refresh our activities every year. 

We generally have more hits than misses.    Since internal evaluation is an integral part of executing the Picnic, this year’s Picnic will

undoubtedly be more fantastic than the previous ones.

OASES NEWS:  What is the rationale behind this yearly Yoruba Picnic?

Olubunmi:   It is necessary that we share our understanding with each other.  We have to note that we find ourselves in

a part of the world where individualism and independence are valued, where most of the immigrants experience loneliness

and disconnection, hence our coming together at the picnic is aimed to ensure more sense of interconnectedness, interdependence,

rebuild relationship with associations and to build supportive social networks for ourselves with the central idea of sharing common struggles.

Family members will  have the opportunity to meet each other, sons and daughters may eventually know themselves and fall in love which

may eventually lead to marriage, so the picnic should be seen as a gravitational pull for inter-relationship and interdependency among the Yoruba associations, friends and well-wishers.  At the picnic, our children   will be able to witness the pragmatism of domesticity skills and

cultural etiquettes of the Yorubas.