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THE DALLAS HARAMBEE FESTIVAL

The Oldest Cultural Festival in America Celebrating Unity in the Community Since 1974

Please join us on our facebook to participate

in the Harambee 2020 Virtual Festival.

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WELCOME TO 46th HARAMBEE DALLAS

- First Live Streaming on Facebook

- First Launch of Harambee Channels

#HarambeeDallas #HarambeeDallas46

Harambee is the oldest and largest African American cultural event in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, with over 15,000 in attendance. The festival is a community-based educational and cultural event that was created in the early 1970’s, by the founding members of the Harambee Festival Steering Committee, a group of community minded citizens who gathered at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center to form a safe and alternative celebration to Halloween.

In 2020, traditional Harambee Dallas will begin the Harambee Dallas Interactive, or HDI for short, due to Covid 19, to continue to keep our children safe and to support our children and young adults with positive interactions ranging from marketplace demonstrations to talks and entertainment on video and virtual experience.

TO PROMOTE SOCIAL DISTANCING AND UNITY IN THE COMMUNITY

REASONS TO SUPPORT THE

46th HARAMBEE DALLAS

Safeguards

The Harambee Festival, the longest running festival of its kind – a unity festival, was born out of the need to create a safe space for youth. In the early 1970’s the Harambee Festival gathered at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Center to form an alternative celebration to Halloween. The goal then and continues to be to provide a positive, cultural and educational experience for the over 15,000 children, youth and adults in attendance year after year. Now in response to COVID-19, Harambee Festival this year added a safe space online for a virtual experience while thousands of families will pickup their treat bag from the drive through pick.

Opportunities

The Harambee Festival, offers over 10,000 volunteer opportunities for youth and adults. Additionally in partnership with Citizens Committee to Save Our Children Inc., (CCSOC) a 501c3 non-profit, to provide formula for over 20,000 of hungry babies, over 5,000 Easter baskets, and dozens of Dallas Independent School District (DISD) high school students participated in over 20 plays over the last 10 years in theater arts program. These efforts help to combat teenage pregnancy, gang violence, suicide, and low graduation rates according to the 2012 U.S. Census an average of 20% of current High school students are expected to graduate (Census, 2012). DISD is the 2nd largest district in Texas and 14th largest in the US encompassing 226 schools in 2020.

Training

The Harambee Festival is a huge supporter of providing training opportunities and educational exposure to our youth. A solution is to open the minds of our impressionable youth and illustrate to them the positive alternative avenues to express themselves. Teach them self-esteem, self-confidence, self-control, self-reliance along with a talent and a trade. There is a need for positive reinforcements and positive role models ranging from entertainment to politics.

Watoto Village

online

We sponsor the children’s area with 2-D and 3-D imagery and videos of fun houses, arts and crafts, games, free treat bags for all children under the age of 18. This is a day filled with interactive educational projects as well as entertaining events. There are workshops, seminars, exhibitions, inspirational performances along with activities for both the young and old to bring us together. Be sure to check out youth activities the live stream on Facebook.

Marketplace

online

A goal of Harambee Festival is to create a virtual 365/24/7 marketplace to expand the relationship between specialty vendors and attendees. Due to COVID-19 safety requirements, the 15,000 in-person festival goers are asked to do 2 things. Attend the online virtual experience on by watching the live stream from their devices on Facebook. Future milestones are to employ twenty people for different projects and productions inside the local and global marketplace as well as the arts. We also plan to recruit over one hundred young people to develop their careers and/or their businesses in the marketplace both online and onsite as early as the age of 18.

Founders

inspiration

Arthello Beck, Marilyn Clark, Lloyd Gite, Leo Hassan, Charles Hillman, Al Lipscomb, Jo Long, Billy Murkledove, Donald Payton, Chief Ifayomi "Karioki" Arthur Riggins, Al Simmons, Juanita Simmons, and Bill Stone are the founding members of the Harambee Festival Steering Committee created in the early 1970's. This group of community minded citizens created an alternative to Halloween that provided a positive, cultural experience for youth and adults. Please see the live stream for the tribute to our founders.

BENEFITS OF MARKETPLACE ONLINE

46th HARAMBEE DALLAS

RVSP
for Pickup

Prior registration of attendees to the Harambee Dallas festival using a new marketplace online system allows persons to pickup treats and candy bags as well as additional freebies from advertisers.

VIDEOS

for Entertainment

Harambee Dallas seeks to relay messages that attract an audience to visit Dallas in the virtual world initially, and through that virtual experience become excited enough to visit Dallas in the near future and patronize our businesses.

Partnerships

for Marketing

Harambee Dallas, in this time of Covid 19, is extending its reach to Unify the community by partnering with vendors shortly before, during, and after the festival by offering during the 46th Harambee Dallas a curated and feature-rich set of slots for online videos and onsite tables setup to distribute curbside during a drive through giv-a-way placing contactless and free gift bags into the trunks of vehicles.

Channels

for Videos with Advertisements

Harambee Dallas can collect videos, images, and text from various vendors (advertisers) and showcase scenes and scripts from these videos - live, on demand, on schedule, on rotation, on kiosks, on many desktop computers, and on many phones.