The following are excerpts from the message sent by Mr. G. Raj Chitaram, who is inspired by the idea of Candle Night in Japan, and has been working hard to hold the first national Candle Night in Mauritius. Please visit their website:
http://www.freewebs.com/ncnm/

During my visit in Japan (Ship for World Youth Program), I was particularly impressed by one of my JPY colleagues who was talking about Candle-Night activities in her prefecture. I was very fascinated by the idea, especially as I am myself an ardent environmentalist and involved in many civil society enterprises, NGOs etc. Thus, germinated the idea to organize Candle-Night in Mauritius.

I started talking about Candle-Night to my friends and everyone laughed at me as it made no sense to them but this further inspired me to go ahead with the project. I then took contact with the Japanese Candle Night Committee (JCNC) that supported me in my endeavour to organize Candle-Night in Mauritius. Being the Secretary General of a reputed Mauritian NGO, Association Civique Midlands, and the Chairman of the Global One Foundation hugely played to my advantage to take a major decision to take up the challenge of such an initiative.

An Organizing Committee was constituted and slowly we have been spreading the virtues of Candle Night across the island. In Japan and other countries (Northern Hemisphere), Candle-Night is organized during the Summer and Winter Solstices. The World Environment Day is celebrated annually on the 05th of June and this led our Organizing Committee to associate NCNM with Environment Day celebrations. It was decided to earmark the 1st Friday of the month of June to celebrate Candle-Night in Mauritius, hopefully on an annual basis.

The"'Official Press Presentation" of NCNM was held on Wednesday 05th April 2006 @ "Le Cafe du Vieux Conseil", Port-Louis; many important personalities were present in that occasion.

The NCNM logo was designed by Mr. Victor Chui Hom Lap.

The logo symbolizes the Mauritian community holding hands, united around a warm candle light in the dark and enjoying the event. The colours of each figure represent our national flag and the overall flower shape of the logo is a symbol of harmony. In a nutshell, the logo symbolises the essence of "National Candle-Night Mauritius". . .

I also invite you all to visit our website
http://www.associationciviquemidlands.com

[Photo: courtesy of National Candle-Night Mauritius]