Pamela T Munyoro
(News of The South) – Harmony Anne-Marie llunga is originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo, she moved to Hong Kong in 2011 as a refugee.
Ilunga is 22 years old as a model she quickly identified the gap that was between the people of colour and the rest of the people and she was motivated to establish Harmony HK- a refugee curated social enterprise.
At Harmony HK, they work so hard to raise awareness on waysto improve livelihoods of refugees and ethnic minorities in Hong Kong by celebrating diversity through fashion and music.
As a foreigner, a black woman in the modelling industry, it is hard to compete and meet up with their preferred standards of a beautiful woman that is tall, thin and light skinned but Ilunga is challenging all these factors by staying true to herself.
At the age of 17, IIunga was rejected several times at different agencies because of her skin colour.
“1 would walk into an agency and they told me that they prefer white models to black,”
Despite the discrimination she faced in her career making, Ilunga, founded her own agency that welcomes male and female of all colour, shape and sizes.
She believes that representation matters so much and fashion is an accessible way to change minds across the world.
Her agency now has 32 male and female models on its books from places such as Rwanda,Burundi, Pakistan, India and many more.
Although a lot is being done across the world to end discrimination, the majority of black women are still facing resistance but with time and efforts to end this, so much will be achieved.
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