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Fostering civic engagement: From film screenings to performances, AfroMundo brings community together
Banjo player Hubby Jenkins will perform at the Outpost Performance Space on Saturday, April 13.
It was in January 2023 when Maritza P茅rez got the official word that banjo player Hubby Jenkins would perform in sa国际传媒官网网页入口 at the AfroMundo Festival.
鈥淭his was more than a year in advance,鈥� says P茅rez, founder and director of the festival. 鈥淚鈥檓 constantly working on the programming for the festival.鈥�
This year鈥檚 AfroMundo Festival takes place from Saturday, April 13, through Saturday, April 20, at various locations around sa国际传媒官网网页入口.
The venues include The sa国际传媒官网网页入口 Museum, National Hispanic Cultural Center, South Broadway Cultural Center, Valle de Oro Wildlife Refuge and Three Sisters Kitchen.
P茅rez says AfroMundo was born of a desire to counter alienation and marginalization by fostering civic engagement.
She says it was therefore founded on the principles of convite 鈥� an age-old collaborative tradition that enables community members to pool their talents and scarce resources for rituals of life, socialization and mutual support, whether to collectively harvest each other鈥檚 fields, erect homes, tend to the sick, bury the dead, celebrate feast days or organize festivals, thus strengthening communal bonds and ensuring that no one toils, grieves or celebrates alone.
P茅rez says in the spirit of convite, which takes into account that communities are wellsprings of wisdom, talents and skills, AfroMundo is a diverse, multigenerational collective of tradition bearers, storytellers, community historians, artists, cultural specialists and humanities scholars with the shared goal of nurturing community through meaningful traditional as well as contemporary cultural, artistic, and humanities programs designed to nourish the soul, address inequities, spark informed dialogues, and establish alliances to combat racism and bias.
鈥淲ith AfroMundo, we let the ancestors guide what we do,鈥� P茅rez says. 鈥淭he people that come to participate in the festival, they come because they are as hungry as we are for dialog. Communal dialogs can happen when there鈥檚 a pandemic of anxiety and loneliness and oppression. We鈥檙e not the only ones hungry for it here.鈥�
P茅rez is also proud to be able to present the weeklong programming to the community for free.
Registration is required for each event at .
鈥淲e are a very small organization made up of volunteers,鈥� P茅rez says. 鈥淲e continue to grow the AfroMundo Festival for the entire community.鈥�
