It started, humbly, as what AIME founder Jack Manning Bancroft, a proud Bundjalung man, calls “a social experiment [to] change Indigenous inequity in Australia”.
From Manning Bancroft attempting to inspire a group of students in a Sydney classroom in 2005, the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience has grown to become a global network that has helped tens of thousands of Indigenous youngsters in Australia and from countries further afield including India, Africa and the US, putting them on a positive, hopeful path.
Jack Manning Bancroft with furry friend Professor Hope at AIME’s Imagi-Nation Factory in the Entertainment Quarter.Credit: Janie Barrett
Now, in a characteristically unconventional move, Manning Bancroft has signed AIME’s death warrant, announcing the organisation will cease to exist by 2033. He has no desire, he says, to “build an empire”. For the next 10 years AIME will concentrate on securing its legacy, creating a network “to protect against institutionalisation, decay and corruption”. It will then “pass on the notes” to future generations.
Manning Bancroft has set a hugely ambitious target to raise $100m by the end of this year so AIME can continue its work and plan for its own ending without the constant need to seek funds from donors.
One of the first fundraising efforts is Human Kind, a three-day event being held at Luna Park this week. Each morning starts with wellness sessions, then there are talks and workshops. It concludes in the evening with entertainment – from its own comedy mini-festival (on the first night, March 16) to live music and DJs (on both March 17 and 18).
“It’s everything everywhere all at once,” Manning Bancroft says of the sprawling event. “It doesn’t have to be one thing. It’s layered, it’s got depth and it all interlinks. Life is complicated; Human Kind will have lots of things for lots of different people.”
It will include keynote speeches from the likes of OzHarvest’s Ronni Kahn AO (“Feed the Masses”) and Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) curator Kirsha Kaechele; lessons on breathing control with “Ice Man” Wim Hof; a live podcast, The Indigenous Knowledges Systems Lab, hosted by Tyson Yunkaporta from Deakin University; music from superstars Guy Sebastian and Reggie Watts; and stand-up from comedians including locals Jim Jefferies and Becky Lucas.
And that barely scratches the surface. For example, Manning Bancroft singles out one talk from the 60-plus contributors at the event.
“Here’s this unbelievable lady who’s one of our co-CEOs from South Africa, Candice Mama,” he says. “When she was six months old, her father was assassinated by an apartheid assassin. And then, in her 20s, she took her family back to forgive him. Candice will come and talk about a kindness economy that we’re working on together.”
Kindness is key at AIME – as you can also tell from the title of Human Kind. Along with Manning Bancroft’s almost casual pursuit of “$100 mil”, that might lead to some scepticism.
“Yes, well, there should be,” he says. “Like, the sceptic is helpful. But the sceptic should also look at the frame. If the frame of reference is $100 million for an Indigenous group to do something, and then you look at some of the funding that Destination NSW provides to people to just come and put on an event that lasts for one day … You’re like, oh, well, $100 million to try and solve inequity?”
Much has been made of Manning Bancroft, now 36, becoming CEO of AIME at 22, but that’s something with which he has a complicated relationship.
“I don’t want to be a CEO,” he says. “I hate this job, like, in so much of its frame. But I’m a chance of doing it well because we’re networked really healthily now. I know all of my flaws, and everything I can believe in can be wrong. I know that there’s complexity in everything. And I still believe in hope.”
As a result, there’s much more to Human Kind than your average summit, from what it is going to provide to what it hopes to achieve.
“I see Human Kind as one big lab for humanity to solve the challenges of our time,” Manning Bancroft says. “It’s about the network moving in different ways … We need to be thinking differently and designing differently and implementing differently.”
Human Kind, Luna Park’s Big Top. March 16-18.
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