LIVE 5 November 2021 @ 6—8P (EST)

THE NEW YORK CANNABIS GROWERS & PROCESSORS ASSOCIATION, UNIVERSE CITY × MIDHEAVEN NETWORK PROUDLY PRESENT THE SOCIAL EQUITY TOWN HALL — FOR EDUCATION, ADVANCEMENT & COMMUNITY, LIVE FROM UNIVERSE CITY IN EAST NEW YORK BROOKLYN

The New York Cannabis Growers and Processors Association’s (“NYCGPA”) Social Equity Committee, in partnership with Universe City and MIDHEAVEN Network, is pleased to announce an ongoing Town Hall Information series to explore the emergent social, legislative and business opportunities in New York State’s nascent cannabis industry. Free registration with donation options are open now — reserve your place in the conversation here.

The NYCGPA is a big tent industry trade association. We represent growers, processors, retailers, prospective license-holders, sponsors, and other donors in an effort to ensure that the cannabis industry, forming in the wake of legalization, is one which benefits NYS stakeholder businesses specifically, and small and midscale operators more broadly.

Universe City NYC, an ecological public health laboratory based in the East New York Industrial Zone, is redefining pathways to equity by emphasizing urban agriculture and social enterprise as community healing practices. MIDHEAVEN Network is a brave, generative space of healing and for the building — not “rebuilding” — of a fully inclusive society. Through live arts programming from a global phalanx of performance, visual art, social justice, human development and cinema/ digital/ VR voyagers, MIDHEAVEN will advance courageous, loving & possibility-driven visions to the world.

Join us from 6—8p EST on 5 November 2021 at Universe City’s 234 Glenmore Avenue Laboratory and on live broadcast at MIDHEAVEN.network, for the first in a special series of illuminating, participatory and action-driven live experiences.

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Nicole M. N’diaye — In late 2018 NAHE was established by Nicole M. N’diaye. The brand's of NAHE is to serve as a sustainable apparatus of interconnecting networks in the cannabis-hemp industry. Our core competence values focus on state and federal compliance, good educational practice, cGMP certify seed bank, energy and agriculture solutions, and community economic empowerment. Nicole's first-hand personal community garden experience was where her passion and interest in the horticulture profession began in 2016, deciding to venture into the flourishing cannabis-hemp industry not knowing what to expect. As the first minority woman farmer in NYS to become authorized, "I made my presence felt." Nicole currently has 10 Hemp farms under her license throughout NY State.

Jawanza James Williams — Jawanza (He, Him) is a Black, Radical Queer, Abolitionist and Socialist. He is currently the Director of Organizing at VOCAL-NY, a grassroots organization building power among poor and low-income New Yorkers. Williams is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and a founding member of its Afrosocialists and Socialists of Color Caucus and a member of Black Alliance for Peace. He was born and raised in Beaumont, Texas, attended Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, receiving a BA in 2012.

SirRoan Smiley — SirRoan is a Brooklyn native, multi-media producer, and regenerative designer. Like others with upbringings in NYC during the twilight of the Reagan years, SirRoan was exposed to the codependence of substance abuse at an early age. His outlet of choice was sound and as a successful music producer, songwriter, and entrepreneur, SirRoan accessed an endless well of creativity in writing music with Swizz Beatz, Gucci Mane, and many more established publishers. This myriad of influences drove SirRoan to study plants and the components of their habitats as the basis of all life enhancing material as well as commodities utilized by humans. SirRoan’s continuous drive led him to Permaculture Certification with Andrew Faust and Earthships Biotecture Training with Mike Reynolds. As of January 2020, SirRoan moved on to building and running We Are Earth (WAE), a multi faceted operation featuring high yield vertical farms in collaboration with GROWBOX™. WAE serves as a social and food justice nexus that concentrates on decentralizing farm operations in which marginalized community members will be the primary growers, distributors, and producers of nutrient dense foods and wellness products.

Samir Mahadin — ( He/Him) Samir is the founder of Breathing Web Farms, a certified organic farm in the Finger Lakes, NY. Samir has worked in the cannabis industry since 2016 in California with Hello Caliber and founded his farm in 2018. Samir currently sits as the co-chair of the Social Equity Committee for the New York Cannabis Growers and Processors Association. Being half Dominican and half Jordanian, growing up in Jamaica, Queens, having achieved success in real estate, and being involved in agriculture both large scale and small for nearly 6 years, Samir provides a unique perspective at the different intersections of social equity relevant to Cannabis.

Damian Fagon — Damian Fagon is a 3rd-generation farmer with a background in economic development and agriculture. Since 2017, he has developed and scaled successful cannabis operations in South Carolina, New York and the Caribbean. Damian currently serves as Venture Director for the HOPE Program and the Sustainable South Bronx building out a cannabis workforce development initiative and incubator in the Hunts Point. Damian also serves as a board member and Membership Chair at the NYCGPA .

Free registration with donation options are open now — reserve your place in the conversation here.

MIDHEAVEN NETWORK is a brave, generative space of healing and for the building — not “rebuilding” — of a fully inclusive society. MIDHEAVEN EXISTS IN PARADOX: FROM MANY, ONE.

THROUGH live arts programming from A GLOBAL phalanx OF performance, visual art, social justice, human development and cinema/ digital/ VR voyagers, MIDHEAVEN will ADVANCE COURAGEOUS, loving & possibility-driven VISIONS to the world.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR × EXECUTIVE PRODUCER GEORGE DEL BARRIO

art director AL-KHABIR RICHMAN

DIRECTOR OF AUDIO ADRIAN MARTINEZ

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY BRIAN GONZALEZ

CAMERA OPERATOR IAN CHEN

COMPOSER + ASSOCIATE PRODUCER bandit lu

©2021 MIDHEAVEN NETWORK

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