Creative communities led by people from the global majority and LGBTQIA+ communities remain significantly underfunded and underrepresented in mainstream cultural infrastructure, despite their central role in shaping contemporary art, music, design, and social movements. National research consistently shows that these communities receive a disproportionately small share of philanthropic and corporate arts investment.

As a result, much of this work operates without stable facilities, long-term funding, or institutional protection. Programs are often temporary. Spaces are lost. Leadership is overextended. Cultural memory is fragmented.

Kijiji Sanaa is responding to this gap by building durable, land-based creative infrastructure in East Tennessee while maintaining an international network developed over fourteen years. The project prioritizes long-term sustainability, ethical growth, and community stewardship over short-term visibility.

At a time of widespread creative burnout, economic precarity, and social fragmentation, Kijiji Sanaa offers a model for how cultural spaces can be rooted, resilient, and community-led. Its work intersects arts, land stewardship, education, and social wellbeing—making it relevant to conversations about equity, rural development, creative economies, and cultural preservation.

For media outlets, Kijiji Sanaa represents a rare example of a long-running, internationally informed initiative transitioning into permanent cultural infrastructure in the U.S. South—led by a Black woman founder and grounded in community accountability.