Parents urged to encourage children to undertake studies in arts
DAR ES SALAAM: PARENTS have been called upon to encourage their children to undertake studies in arts to enable the latter to become professionals as doing so will see them earn a meaningful income.
The call to that end was made in Bagamoyo recently during a working session by UNESCO to discuss the road map for the implementation of Convention 2005 to fit the Tanzanian context during the digital era.
Contributing during the discussion, Perpetua Katondo, a lecturer from the Bagamoyo College of Arts said Most parents and the community demean the sector where some would come and say mtoto wangu anapenda kuchora chora na kuimba imba a Swahili sentiment which implies making useless drawing or singing where once advised to send them to college they tend to ask where it would take them to.
“Some perceive that those who play traditional dances are illiterate. There have been cases where those who attend the college of arts refuse to be taught how to dance traditional dances on account that they have left people in rural areas doing the same. However, once educated, they tend to understand that art is a profession like others, “said Katondo
She called upon the need to train those in the sector on digital marketing to enable artists to share and market their work globally to secure some lucrative deals.
For his part, Martin Muhando from the Zanzibar International Film Festival stressed upon the need to come up with a friendly system to ensure that artists are fairly remunerated whenever they upload their work in social media accounts such as Facebook and others.
He called upon the need for the country to establish an independent art lobbying board that will not wait but rather share challenges, needs and plans by artists to the government be it physically or digitally.
“The body must attend anything that involves artists and should engage in public open advocacy meetings to help them,” he said.
Tanzania is faring well as artists have networks but the main challenges remain to be the lack of data on who does what with reports during the meeting indicating that most of them are operating informally.
The Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions is a binding international legal instrument adopted in 2005 by the UNESCO General Conference.
The main objective of the Convention is to support sustainable systems of governance for culture to achieve a balanced flow of cultural goods and services to increase mobility of artists and cultural professionals.
Other goals are to integrate culture in sustainable development frameworks as well as to promote human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The session brought together stakeholders from the cultural and creative sectors in Zanzibar and mainland as well as authorities in the responsible ministries, BAKITA, COSOTA, COSOZA, ZIFF, BAKIZA, TAMCODE, YOGE private sector as well as members of the press.
