VNITY TRUMPS HARAMBECOUVER TO BECOME VANCOVUER’S MULTICULTURAL CARNIVAL 2019 OVERARCHING MONIKER
March 21, 2019
While HMC19 might be going into it’s 3rd year of programming, citing the presentation of Jace Kim as part of it’s , the feedback from the slow but gradual community presentations backed by Skynation, Rising Youth, Dusk2Dawn, Cxxlaid and Various returning vendors and artisan. Feedback from HMC19's open house would bring a need to really target focus on the various communities of whom are putting their resources, funding, and time into keeping Vancouver’s Multicultural Carnival alive and not an organization which was both absent, unresponsive and rejected engagement from various community stakeholders asking Kombii Nanjalah of the African Great Lakes to take responsibility and be accountable to her organization's commissioned production. "Given there's too much invested in the production to stop, as that would be a loss and it would force us to come for the city of Vancouver and the Government, but if we're about to hold the contracting organization accountable while focusing energy on the growing conversations happening with more stakeholders coming to the table within the city also listening to Vnity, then that's progress we can work with" said Cory Lee, project manager for 2019's third annual Vnity.
With the need for the law to get involved in advocating, members of the production community of whom were bailed out of the organizations funding default did offer other recommendations as part of the production community who not only showed up, but created more artistic works to promote the continuation of Vancouver's Multicultural Carnival into 2019. Having Jace Kim headline, might not have drawn a lot of people, but the painting produced, will be part of the touring campaign pieces which will add awareness to the work being done.
The need to really encapsulate the various cultures being displayed and the diverse range of stakeholders of whom have a stake in Harambecouver has led into the evolution of VNITY. Pronounced “Unity”, the core mission of #Harambecouver had been to unite people as developed and written by Kayode Fatoba,the program creator of what would eventually be known as Harambecouver. Citing the cincinnati zoo gorilla’s name which was Harambe of whom utified the world to take action, as well as the etymology of the word Harambe travelling from India to Kenya of which also translated to meaning Unity. The choice of branding the Carnival after the word was really inspired by the Funding partners of whom was contracting the launch of this production and purchasing the program. While Harambecouver was birthed within African Great Lakes Networking Foundation of whom would put their African Carnival to the side to partner with Fatoba of whom would later bring Skynation to the table as production partners, the second year of the production would fall apart citing various unlawful activities by the presenting organization of which would put the entire Harambecouver production and various sub programming and crew members at risk. From the lack of funding, full city buy-in, as well as volunteer resources, there was a limit on Skynation capabilities to produce HMC18 at a level which gave confidence to it’s visitors, tourists, production crew and members within the needs required to produce the city’s first and growing multicultural Carnival. From a #NetworkHub connecting artists to community investors and resources, a #DiversityConference focused on how to promote Canada’s subcultures and marginalized communities within post reconciliation Canada, tons of festivals and activities all under the multicultural carnival umbrella, all of which the main goal is targeted at getting people out and engaging together within the city’s multicultural block party. While Vnity will be composed of a lot more social and commercial programing, the organizations still want to stay try to the spirit of Harambecouver of which drew a wide range of communities to the production in the first place. The need to develop a stronger brand that brings everyone together, is less controversial, while leaving the need for Harambecouver to sought out it’s legal issues internally within the requirements necessary to represent the parade component of VNITY could not be clearer. With Great Lakes Canada, the Canadian chapter of African Great Lakes Networking Foundation of which was founded by Kombii Nanjalah, also shutting down, citing the step down of the acting president, who has chosen to remain anonymous as liability does fall on the executive director of the organization and founder of the overarching organization African Great Lakes Networking Foundation. This decisions which does impact contractual requirements to the organization would signal the need to drop AGLN as a presenter for the third annual production while starting the legal process for settlement. Dissolving this chapter due to financial mismanagement issues and a lack of organizational infrastructure to support the various production agreements and various confidential and legal conversations required to grow Harambecouver into a quality presentation is part of the various reasons why VNITY was chosen. Although VNITY plans to keep the Harambecouver moniker as part of the multicultural carnival’ss range of programming, this will only occur once the lien associated with the current settlement within what is owed to it’s production staff is paid and the various activation plans and budget meets the requirements of both Skynation as well as the city of Vancouver. Given the city of Vancouver and Skynation will need to prioritize adequate planning and capital to be able to present the multicultural Parade component within VNITY, building on Harambecover, adding the necessary infrastructure and organizational capacity to execute such a Parade while also having a healthy budget is the main priority and what the program activation of Harambecouver will be focused on if it will be represented as part of the continued growth of Vnity. Coming to settlement within the current production expenses to both the city of Vancouver and Skyantion will not be easy for African Great Lakes within it’s changing directors and legal woes and with the production needing to meet it’s 5 year milestone Skynation believes that working based on the organzation’s timelines while being responsible for developing emergency payables to support the vendors impacted by the organization’s failure to meet it’s financial obligations is callous to the work that went into 2018 and puts the organization in a credible and healthy state when there are various stakeholders working behind the scene to clean up it’s mess. VNITY will engage with it’s stakeholders directly and manage it’s production budgets directly. Within the need to invest in infrastructure designs and software and civil engineering, attendee safety, traffic management and entertainment law and much more, the need to grow the production value for year three to be more encampulative with less middleman engaging with city and government on the necessary resources to grow this initiative also gave rise to the need for VNITY to be selected within the growing rebrand of Vancouver’s Multicultural Carniva. While VNITY’s lineups, attraction, and roll out information for the 3rd annual Multicultural Carnival is still underwraps withing the growing ground work required to bring the production to life, followers can continue to follow Skynation for up to date information as we count down to 2019’s VNITY.
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