The ADSBC is governed by a solid Board of Directors, with the festival being led by a team of experts from both the African and Canadian communities, as well as experienced staff consultants. We also enjoy the support of over 100 volunteers that assist in the successful delivery of the festival event, as well promotional activities such as and website design and maintenance.
The festival management is led by Yasin Kiraga; Executive Director and founder. Yasin is a professional event planner, event promoter and producer with ten experience in events productions, planning and promotion. Yasin has worked in major events production companies, events managements, artist bookings and live event promotions with many international events producers, planners, and high profile artists from African, Caribbean and other international and Canadian artists.
To ensure the success of each annual event, the ADF planning committee oversees and implements a variety of strategies. The Committee utilizes and extensive planning calendar for the event’s management, which begins a full year in advance of each festival, with explicit weekly and monthly goals; and actively track achieved milestones throughout the year (. For success these strategic measures are designed and implemented by festival Executive & Artistic director working with the larger planning committee, with input from other festival experts. The ADF also produces a detailed master plan document, as well as a separate marketing and communication strategy. Currently the African Descent Festival planning team has contacted and shortlisted a variety of different community organizations, artists, bands and groups, who have all expressed interest in participating, and/or have been confirmed to date. Overall the festival plan is approved and in place – with only a few details still needed to be finalized.

The ADF’s success during the past years is due largely to its team of dedicated and hardworking volunteers. We have so far met with over several volunteers and we expect number to increase who will be interested to work for the event, and we screen process by our Volunteer Coordinators every year who come from various parts of Vancouver, BC and other areas.

The Society has worked hard to develop comprehensive and growing support for the festival over the past four years, and we are encouraged by the very positive response we have received to date. Funding sources have included community and corporate support, as well as consistent grant funding from the municipal, provincial and Federal government support the festival great work in promoting Multiculturalism, Arts & Heritage and diversity. ADSBC is currently working with Vancouver consultant to assist the organization in developing capacity building for sponsorships, funds; grants helped us build new funding sources over the past year. We also plan festival events with realistic budget assumptions and projections that demonstrate a diversified revenue base.
The African Descent Festival is increasingly gaining wide range of community support (local, national and international). For the 2021 year, the ADF enjoyed the support of a wide range of the community including: local media (e.g. 24+ media sources – radio, TV and newspapers; 50+ social media / websites / bloggers; print adverting and promotion agencies, 15 tourism companies); local businesses (e.g. donations from Vita Coco, Rehma Africa Art Craft, Flight booking agencies); not-for-profit organizations (e.g. 100+ community events who advertised and promoted the festival for free including Folk Festival, Caribbean Days Festival, Vancouver International Jazz Festival, Ottawa Africa Festival, Regina Afrofest, Afrofest Edmonton; 28 community/information booths; and 70 African and Caribbean community associations); and local schools – all of whom contributed significantly to the success of our festival.

The festival will focus on local artists this year, to lay a framework of welcoming the international community to Vancouver to celebrate with our local artists as well. With the vision of showcasing Vancouver to the world, this year will feature a range of activities compiling our yearly expanding program, with the festival spreading to two days, the idea will be to commence with a focus on History, Storytelling, Poetry, and Crafts, there will be face painting, and general booths for Showcase their culture. The idea of the first day will be geared more towards an community building and less of performance arts. Poets, Storytellers, and Actors will take main stage on the first day, there will be opportunities for food vendors to sell their cuisine as well! We will have tour guides to lead guests who are interested in learning about the history of Hogan’s Alley and other parts of the city within this event. Guests will be able to register on our website to be a part of the festival! The second day on the other hand will be much more “hype”, as the artists coming into town will be very expensive, the Saturday programming will be changed into more of a celebration focusing less on the intermingling and more unto the stage setup! Vendors, Food and Beer Garden will be setup for the community to come and enjoy music from phenomenal performers, live painting, dance and drum cafes. There will be face painting as well as other vibrant attractions.