We want Shambino to be a safe space and strongly believe that everybody has the right to enjoy the festival experience free from harassment, microaggressions, abuse or intimidation. We are committed to ensuring that Shambino is an inclusive space for communities targeted by discrimination such as racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism and homophobia. We welcome feedback on how we can improve on these efforts. Every person who comes to Shambino, be it crew, artists or audience has a shared responsibility to oppose discriminatory behaviours and promote inclusivity. This is a community and every body is welcome.
ACCESSIBILITY
We have a range of accessibility services available at Shambino. This includes a dedicated accessible camping area, free personal assistant tickets and mobility aid charging. Read about what support we have available HERE. You can also email accessibility@shambalafestival.org if you have any queries.
SEXUAL SAFETY
We are proud to be part of an industry-wide initiative promoting sexual safety at festivals – we believe that everyone should feel (and be) safe at all times, and that any form of uninvited advance (physical or verbal) is absolutely unacceptable. We strongly encourage anyone who has experienced or witnessed sexual harassment to report it to a steward or security – we will take all reports seriously and take appropriate action. Don’t be a bystander!
CULTURAL APPROPRIATION
At Shambino we seek to celebrate global cultural flows and engage with different cultures with respect. As part of our commitment to diversity and creating as inclusive as possible a space we’ve been doing some introspection and learning, looking at our hidden biases and cultural appropriation.
The term is alive and tricky, but in it’s most basic sense we take cultural appropriation to be: when members of a dominant culture pick and choose elements of another culture to enjoy or exploit from people who have been systematically oppressed by that same dominant group.
We’re on a journey to learn more about cultural misappropriation in festival settings in order to design it out of our fields. This is to make Shambino a safe and welcoming place of genuine and generous cultural exchange. We’d encourage the whole of our community to have a look into understanding cultural appropriation in order to make decisions that celebrate rather than appropriate, parody or otherwise unkindly or un-thoughtfully engage with cultures that are not necessarily their own.
Have a look at the resources we have found helpful about cultural appropriation, especially in festival settings, here – www.shambalafestival.org/cultural-appropriation