Since 1989, DAY-MER Culture and Art Festival has been a platform where local and migrant workers, who come side by side in the fields of struggle throughout the year, celebrate their unity, common struggle and international solidarity through culture and art, and has begun to be remembered together with the traditional festivals of the UK.

In Britain, a country of festivals, workers and trade unions have carried the historical actions, strikes, resistances and solidarities that stand out in the labor struggle to the present day through the festivals they organise all over the country. Durham Miners Gala, Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, The Women Chainmakers’ Festival, Silk Mill Festival and Wigan Diggers Festival are among the traditional festivals that come to mind.

As in all these festivals, the DAY-MER Culture and Art Festival, for 35 years, has expressed the most urgent problems of workers and labourers in the UK and around the world and called for struggle and organisation. Organised within the scope of our festival, which will be held for the 35th time this year will include a panel, picnic, exhibition, theatre and park festival, we will once again bring to the public agenda the problems faced by labourers, migrant labourers and the peoples of the world. In the last year, the struggles of workers and labourers in the UK, Europe and Turkey for their rights, the solidarity actions of the peoples on the streets against the occupation, attacks and sieges in the Middle East and all over the world, especially in Palestine, and the demands for peace will come to the fore in the festival activities.

This year's festival is taking place at a time when workers' and labourers’ struggles are rising on many issues from poverty to health, from wages to working conditions, from racism to wars. Our festival will contribute to the advancement of the unity, solidarity and solidarity of the working people, the necessity of which is even more evident in these ongoing struggles. But it will also shed light on the lives of working people through their dedication, creativity and aspirations, bringing local and migrant workers closer together and strengthening their hopes.

Under increasingly difficult conditions, the uninterrupted continuation of our festival for 35 years has so far been possible thanks to the voluntary contributions and support of our members and friends. However, we have come to a point where more than this is needed to sustain this festival. With 35 years of history, the continuation and success of DAY-MER Culture and Art Festival, which has become a symbol of the history of the Turkish and Kurdish communities living in the UK, is possible only if you embrace the festival more, become more active participants, not just spectators, and offer more support.

We need this for a festival that is far from commercial concerns, that embraces culture and art workers who stand with the people that advocates the unity of local and migrant workers, that includes representatives of labour organisations and politicians who oppose racism, wars, exploitation and privatisation in its program.

With this call, we hope that our 35th Culture and Art Festival will be instrumental in further strengthening our unity and we invite you to the festival events.

Hope to see you at the festival events...