FIESTA LATINA!

At Southfields Library this afternoon, to join in "Fiesta Latina", a day of family fun celebrating Leicester's link with its twin town, Masaya, in Nicaragua.

No need for me to say here that Leicester prides itself on its diversity. But among our established, settled or newly arrived communities identified with different cultures, ethnicities, languages, nationalities, races, religions, here is a different expression of Leicester's diversity, though not so well known, recognised or celebrated.

Leicester and Masaya were officially twinned in 1987. Since then, the Leicester Masaya Link Group (LMLG) has worked to develop and maintain an exchange of contacts between the two cities by co-ordinating projects aimed at enriching life in both cities. LMLG is a registered charity, with two objectives:

• To work towards the relief of poverty in the Masaya Region by facilitating partnerships for sustainable development.
• To raise public awareness around global issues in both Leicester and Masaya.

LMLG aims to foster mutual understanding and friendship between the people of Leicester and Masaya, by celebrating the diversity of our respective cities. The link ensures that the global issues which affect our sister city in Nicaragua are as important here as they are in Masaya.

As well as facilitating practical projects that promote sustainable development on the ground in Masaya, the LMLG contributes to the provision of development education and global awareness raising across all sectors of the community, by organising exchange visits, cultural activities, projects in schools, speaker meetings and other public events in Leicester

Today, in the little theatre at Southfields Library there are colourful and informative displays showing life in Msaya and some of the food, drink and other products that come from Nicaragua and its neighbour countries. We get the chance to do some craft activities. Harry and Grace particularly enjoy the mask-making.

I join in my first salsa lesson this afternoon. I tweeted at the time that I was the best guy in the group, because I was the only guy in the group. I've since realised that there was one other man there, who had adopted my own approach (stand at the back so no one can see you) and taken it one step further - in other words, he stood behind me even. Well, at least I can confidently state that I was in the top two guys there. And, as we all know, faithful reader, "People love to say 'salsa'!"

An initial tweet, announcing the event, was retweeted by @WCWDT - the twitterfeed of What Can We Do Today, an independently published free magazine distributed to primary school children and their families across the borough of Charnwood.