Femfest to celebrate outstanding women
Women empowerment has always been a strong theme that Alicia-Ann ‘Sassy Divva’ Roxborough embraces, and for the past years she has been honouring and uplifting extraordinary women through the all-female musical festival, Femfest.
“Being in the industry, which is a male-dominated field, I do not believe women are really appreciated and honoured as they ought to be. So I came up with the concept to honour women, during International Women’s Month, for the excellent services and contributions that they’ve done to society,” Roxborough told THE
WEEKEND STAR.
The event will be hosted at Aliv Premium Lounge in Portmore on March 15.
The predominantly self-funded project, which was initially drafted for persons in entertainment, was later broadened to include women in business, media, sports and humanitarian contributors.
“It’s International Women’s Month and I don’t want the brand to be just a dominant entertainment brand, so we’re looking at honouring other persons who are phenomenal women, who really made an impact by working hard and tirelessly in building their brands,” she said.
“We are also zooming in on the municipality of Portmore, one of the fastest-rising community where entertainment is concerned. So this year we’ll be honouring a lot of young women, new and upand-coming promoters in Portmore who have made their impact and contribution to entertainment. Also among the awardees is a female police inspector who has contributed to entertainment,” she added.
With this year’s theme dubbed ‘Queens of Dancehall,’ the selfmotivated businesswoman hopes that this initiative will change the
“derogatory” outlook on females in the music space.
“We want to change the mindset of dancehall by culturing persons’ minds to look at us as queens, entrepreneurs who are venturing into entertainment, and just changing how people view women in dancehall who are making their honest living,” Sassy expressed. The event’s awardees for this year will include dancehall artiste Stacious, events host Camalla Latouche, a life-time achievement award for songstress D’Angel, and promoter Kelly Upsetter.
A few of the newly established promoters who will receive an award this year include Pretty Cuz, Yung and Trending Female and Breakout Promoter of the Year Chu Chu.
“Social media plays an important role in the younger generation, creating a lucrative business in entertainment and building a brand for themselves. I really took the time to observe the entertainment fraternity in Portmore, and look at how the structure is set up and how well some of these young ladies are doing; and there’s nobody there to tell dem ‘thank you’ and encourage them. So this year, I decided I want to empower some of these young women by honouring them, and they deserve it,” she said.
Despite being a female-focused award show, Sassy said the event has received strong support from local male entertainers such as I-Octane, Nesbeth, and head of the Victoria Jubilee Hospital, Dr Garth McDonald.