MANILA, PHILIPPINES — Kumunizens like to amplify everything, especially social causes and advocacies. This week, the Kumunity is launching the first-ever Bayani Festival, an 8-week-long virtual festival dedicated to social causes— with a #kummufied twist!
One of the most ambitious Kumunity efforts to date, the Bayani Festival is held in partnership with 10 non-profit and charitable organizations, with 3 major events series for the Kumunity to partake in for fun, and charity. The kick-off event for the Bayani Festival is set for this Friday, July 23, 10:30 AM PHT at the @kumunitystage, during which the Kumunity will get to know the partner organizations, team participants, and performers.
For this year, the kumu Bayani Festival’s 10 organization partners are: Save The Children Philippines, Theater Actors Guild, World Wide Fund for Nature PH, Waves for Water PH, Manila Street Love, Mano Amiga PH, Campaign One At A Time, For Our Farmers PH, and Tech For Filipino Youth.
Bayani Festival spans from July to September, with 3 major event series simultaneously running. The first is the “Palarong Pinoy” series, where special advocacy groups will host a fundraiser, featuring a traditional Filipino game for all to play, where viewers can participate and drop virtual gifts for the benefit of the non-profit organizations.
The second event series is the kumu Bayani “Team Tournaments”, in which 10 selected Kumunity Teams will compete for the best advocacy presentation and promotion for their assigned organization. For this event series, there will be 4 elimination rounds, with the grand winner being awarded the first kumu Bayani Team Champion 2021.
The third event is the kumu Bayani Festival “King & Queen” series. If you love pageants, this will be your favorite run! Each region can enter 2 official candidates, one male and one female, for a chance to win the kumu Bayani Festival royalty title. The kumu Bayani “King & Queen” event series is estimated to have 10 male and 10 female candidates, including those selected via the Wild Card kumu klips challenge. Applications are still open until July 31st, so interested applicants can check with their kumu region heads, or watch out for the announcement of Wildcard Kumu clip search on @juankumunity IG.
As the first online festival of its kind in kumu, the Bayani Festival will be a fascinating glimpse into the power of online connections to propel social causes. “[The Kummunity’s] proclivity to empower and give is what inspired the kumu Bayani Festival,” says Diana Dayao, kumu’s Corporate Social Responsibility Manager. In fact, it’s not unusual for Kumunity streamers to regularly promote an advocacy or humanitarian organization during their kumu livestreams.
Since the beginning of this year alone, the Kumunity has supported more than 50 non-profit organizations, usually through uniquely #kumufied ways, like stream concerts, Kumunity Teams competitions, games, and more. Diana comments, “To date, 25 of these organizations are official kumu partners now. Plus, every now and then, a new charitable organization reaches out for support, and we do want to support them all. So we thought, why not celebrate them in one big bayanihan?”
In the grand scheme of things, the kumu Bayani Festival is the Kumunity’s way to flex its power to give back to their fellow Filipinos, in the most creative and fun way that we can make it. Diana explains, “The Bayani Festival hopes to demonstrate that there’s nothing more powerful than selflessly working together. We aim to continue being an instrument of growth and fruitful collaborations. We hope to show that kumu is more than an entertainment platform – it is a thriving, online community with an authentic heart.”
Follow the official kumu Bayani Festival account @bayanifestival for more information and updates for the events.
