This festival is creating cultural harmony in Sydney

How do you measure the value of a living, breathing event?

This was the challenge that Somali Welfare and Cultural Association (SWCA), a Sydney-based community organisation, posed to researchers at the UTS Business School, who set out to quantify the social and cultural impact of Sydney’s Africultures Festival.

This festival, which SWCA hosts every year, brings together performers, stallholders and attendees to share and showcase Africa’s rich cultural heritage through performance, food and craft.

Like many community events, Africultures is reliant on grant funding. Demonstrating its value to the broader community is vital to ensuring its financial future.

To secure ongoing funding for the festival, which is growing each year, SWCA identified the need for more rigorous tools to measure its impacts on key stakeholder groups – Dr Pavlina Jasovska, a researcher in the UTS Business School.

‘Specifically, the committee needed support revising existing survey tools to ensure they align with the festival’s aims while also evaluating the social impact of the festival in 2023 and beyond.’

A sense of connection and belonging

Prior to the project, SWCA had been conducting their own evaluation activities using an in-house survey. Survey questions were designed to capture demographic information about stallholders, performers and attendees, as well as about their preferences and satisfaction as they related to the festival.

Dr Jasovska and her UTS Business School colleague, Dr Najmeh Hassanli, revised the survey to gather more meaningful data, not only about the enjoyment of the festival but also its impact on attendees’ social wellbeing and perspectives of living in a multicultural society. This approach aligns with the festival's objectives of enhancing community engagement and fostering inclusivity.

Then they took the survey to the 2023 Africultures Festival to test it out.

‘That was an interesting experience – we were going around asking people who were dancing, “Can you fill out a 15-minute questionnaire?”’ says Dr Jasovska.

More than 200 attendees and 35 stallholders and performers completed the survey. The findings showed that Africultures fostered a sense of community connection between African attendees, as well as between African attendees and the broader Australian community. Non-African attendees also described feeling a deeper appreciation for African cultures.

Overall, the event was found to promote cross-cultural understanding and integration, improved social wellbeing, and greater optimism about society as a whole.

‘By attending the festival, participants gain new appreciation for the multicultural nature of Australia; it impacts their overall perspective towards society,’ says Dr Hassanli.

‘They get to feel a sense of connection and belonging, not through differences but through understanding that there are similarities between the various cultures, regardless of where they’re from.’

An entrepreneurial landscape

The research also revealed opportunities to strengthen the professional development opportunities that SWCA provides to stallholders. Before the festival, stallholders are invited to attend capacity-building workshops on food preparation, safety and other practical issues that can help them maximise their impact.

A workshop on social media digital marketing was introduced and the researchers collected data to uncover its strong positive impact on participating stallholders. This aligns with SWCA’s vision for Africultures to expand beyond the festival itself.

One of the goals of the project was to expand opportunities for people to build businesses from their Africultures roots. There are multiple stories about people starting at the festival and then going on to open up their own businesses. – Dr Jasovska.

‘The organisers are clear that they don’t want Africultures to be a one-day thing.’

The research findings have helped secure substantial NSW Government funding to support the 2024 event, and they’ve also equipped SWCA with the tools to measure the festival’s impact long into the future.

These successes were largely the result of the collaborative relationships between the researchers and SWCA – an unconventional approach in academic research where communities are often seen merely as something to be studied rather than as valuable contributors with important perspectives to share.

Image credit: Harambee Africa

The problem
Successful integration is a shared responsibility between immigrant/refugee and host communities. It promotes social cohesion and mutual understanding to foster a more inclusive society. While newcomers may face challenges in adapting to a new country and culture, it is equally important for host communities to create a welcoming, supporting environment. By working together and embracing diversity, both groups can benefit from the exchange of perspectives and contributions.

The response
In partnership with the Somali Welfare and Cultural Association (SWCA), this project assessed the social impact of Africultures Festival, Australia's premier African Arts Festival, which has been run by SWCA for 14 years. The festival aims to bridge cultural gaps and enhance community cohesion through African music, art, crafts, dance and food.

What helped accomplish this?
The aim was to evaluate how the festival fosters community among African and non-African attendees and supports stallholders in developing cultural services. By refining data collection tools, capacity building workshops and producing a report outlining the festival’s social impact, the event will be able to gain more funding and have more social reach.

What has changed as a result?
The relationships formed between UTS and SWCA underscored the importance of teamwork in achieving project objectives, and the crucial role of strong community partnerships in academic research. Moreover, the revised survey enabled the assessment of the festival’s social impact on attendees and stallholders, providing robust evidence to funding bodies and policymakers about the importance of the Africultures Festival in promoting community engagement and social wellbeing. Finally, the workshop enhanced the capacity of stallholders in digital marketing and promotion, with increased sales at the festival and beyond.