#BGFAcademyAlumni — Audrey Owusu-Frempong

Black Girl Fest Academy is a seven-month community-focused creative programme, created by Black Girl Festival, in association with Today at Apple and The Mayor of London.

Over the past few months, we’ve supported 30 Black women aged 17–25, equipping them with the tools to create events for their local communities. We’re excited to introduce our Academy Alumni sharing more about their event ideas.

Meet Audrey Owusu-Frempong founder of Distorted Fest — a multimedia online festival that aims to counter misconceptions about disabilities within Black and Brown communities. It will also reclaim methods of spreading fake news such by creating videos and content to be shared on platforms such as Whatsapp.

Audrey Owusu-Frempong

Tell us more about your event, How did you come up with it? What impact do you hope it makes for your community?

I came up with the event idea after I noticed just how much misinformation there was surrounding my disability coming from my family despite the many years since my diagnosis. There was a refusal to listen to ‘Western’ information in favour of videos and content that spread false information about my condition. With Distorted Fest, I hope to encourage conversations between families and other groups to ensure they can offer as much support possible to the disabled people in their lives. I want to shed racist and ableist stigmas attached to disabilities whilst proving the safest possible space for discussion and a community for disabled black and brown people.

What advice would you give to anyone who wants to sign up to the Black Girl Fest Academy programme?

When applying for the Academy programme, make sure you are passionate about your event and how it impacts your community. The programme is wonderful but intensive. If you’re not passionate about your event then how can others be? It helps to have an idea of a result so you can learn and plan your route to achieve this.

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What have you learnt whilst being on the programme?

I learned a lot but one thing that stands out was budgeting. Managing money and understanding how powerful and useful a good budget was an invaluable experience and skill to learn.

Could you give 3 piece’s of advice you would give to someone who wants to run events for their community?

Know your event and understand the impact you want your event to have within your community

Connect and network with like-minded people! It helps to communicate with people who may be doing similar things and get their insight. You never know, the person you contact could end up playing a large role in your event’s success

Make sure you get your event out there! Make it accessible to those you want to reach. If that means social media or posters around your community, know how to get your target audiences attention