Festival Wedbindé
Heritage, traditional forge and Sahel cultures · Kaya, Sanmatenga Province (North Central Region), Burkina Faso
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The festival
In Kaya, capital of the Sanmatenga, the fire of the forge tells a thousand years of Africa. The Wedbindé Festival — the forge, in Moorish — is the great biennial rendezvous of Burkina Faso's heritage: worn for more than twenty years by the Passate Cultural Association ("what never ends"), it preserves the know-how of the blacksmiths, guardians of the traditional blast furnaces of Africa preserved at the Kaya Furnace Museum.
Iron reduction demonstrations, training workshops — including the children's forge workshop — conferences, street shopping and major artistic evenings bring together cultural actors from the Centre-Nord, other regions of Burkina Faso, the West African subregion and Europe, around the role of blacksmiths in social cohesion and African unity.
Good to know
Biannual festival organized by the Passate Cultural Association (president: Jacob Sayouba Bamogo), created in 2001. The 13th edition is announced from November 19 to 21 November 2026 on the official page of the festival; the official website documents in detail the 12th edition (2024). No contact email published on the official website (telephones and form only). Photo: the traditional forge in full demonstration, taken from the official document of the festival published on festivalwedbinde.org.
