The Award Winning Island Adventure Children’s TV Series, Goombay Kids, produced by LFD Productions is growing its reach and its team. With an impressive 14 awards under it’s belt with the latest win being the recent win of the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival and ever-growing distribution it is clear Goombay Kids is gaining momentum.
The live action series features kids exploring the natural world while meeting Caribbean folklore characters and Goombay Kid experts along their adventures. The show prides itself on empowering children to do it the ‘Goombay Way.’ The series shows children what they are capable of while including impactful messaging about the importance of protecting their environment, inclusion, disability inclusion, women’s and youth empowerment through magical storytelling.
Goombay Kids premiered its first season on local Bahamian cable network, Our TV, with a fully Bahamian cast and crew. Fast forward four seasons later the series secured a historic streaming deal for the Caribbean and is now airing on Amazon, AppleTV, Roku, YouTube Kids and Happy Kids. The series is also celebrated as the #1 rated Caribbean Children’s Show. There is much in the pipeline for Goombay Kids that includes more animation, original music, merchandising and a book series.
As the show elevated its production value over the years, the expansion of the international team has played a major role in improving the quality and distribution of the TV series which now prepares for further growth. Goombay Kids Corp.’s global team now includes Jonathan Barbato (Starz, Best Ever Channels) head of distribution, Janis Shen (Sony Music, Wax Management) head of original music and influencer management, Jaka Benedicic (Talking Tom, Outfit7, Epic Story Media) acting as YouTube Director, Marva Allen (Wordee) and Patrice Samara (Sesame Street, Muppet Babies) both in the position of book publishing, and Gustavo Aparicio (Spanglish) as head of Latin American distribution. This experienced team is focused on taking the media brand to new heights recognizing the TV series is unique and has great potential to not only become a popular show but can create an impact with it’s meaningful messaging for the next generation as well as providing representation that is missing from children’s episodic content.
Kids today want to be empowered as much as entertained,” said Jonathon Barbato, Co-CEO of Best Ever Channels, “Goombay Kids wraps powerful and relevant messages in engaging stories kids want to watch again and again. It’s a notch above much of what’s out there. Excited to be a part.”
Creator Stephanie K. Nihon states, ‘We have been fortunate to have a great team growing around Goombay Kids. I am looking forward to the plans unfolding and seeing this truly special show thrive even more.”
Stephanie K. Nihon became passionate about providing her home country with talent opportunities after becoming very inspired working alongside a local talent agency. Goombay Kids was created out of her drive to showcase the talent, stories and locations of the islands in the Caribbean which have been overlooked in many ways. Nihon is an award-winning producer that regularly speaks on industry panels, and founded The Cays Conference, a red-carpet scouting event and talent search. This event managed to garner many actor and model callbacks from the agencies of the world as well as resulted in two actors signing contracts. Goombay Kids in itself has acted as a springboard for acting careers and led to one of the lead stars Javien Rankine, getting booked for 5 episodes of a Netflix series called The Mighty Express by the makers of Paw Patrol.
Goombay Kids will be opening up global auditions for its new season of films this summer in the late spring. The announcement will be made on their social media pages and website.
Published by: Nelly Chavez
