Binh Thuan leaders visit Cham Bani people on Ramuwan festival

Provincial leaders appreciated the Muslim community’s contributions to the national great unity, while hoping that dignitaries and prestigious people will promote their role in encouraging followers to follow the Party’s policies and the State’s laws and participate in new-style rural area building programmes, and supporting each other in poverty reduction.

Cham Bani dignitaries expressed their gratitude for local authorities to create favourable conditions for Cham people to welcome Ramuwan festival.

They said they hope to receive more assistance from provincial authorities to boost economic development.

Like Kinh people with the Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday, the Cham Bani use the Ramuwan festival as an opportunity to visit home and gather together with their families to pay tribute to their ancestors and pray for happiness, bumper crops and peace.

The festival began with a visit to ancestors’ graves, which took place on May 14-15. Cham Bani families go to cemeteries to cleanse and decorate their ancestors’ graves and invite them back home to celebrate Ramuwan.

Others rituals held during the festival are Va Ha festival, ancestor worshipping at home and Ramadan month when many Muslims do not eat or drink even water between sunrise and sunset.

There are also other cultural and sport activities, attracting both local people and tourists on this occasion. In recent years, the Ramuwan festival has drawn a great number of visitors and researchers both at home and abroad to explore the unique culture of the Islamic Cham community in Binh Thuan. 

Binh Thuan is currently home to 41,000 ethnic Cham people, including more than 15,000 Cham Bani. The province has outlined a line-up of preferential policies to support ethnic people. To date, all localities of the province have access to electricity.