ARTS COMMUNITY DIALOGUE TODAY

MBABANE - The Coordinating Assembly of NGO’s (CANGO) with funding from Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA) is supporting Arterial Network Swaziland to host an arts dialogue today at Liberty Community Centre in Manzini, starting at 9am.

When reached for comment Maswati Dludlu said, “The purpose of the dialogue is to empower the arts community in Eswatini to understand what government should be doing to develop and nurture the arts sector to realise its fullest potential, and contribute effectively in the economic development of the country.” This follows that a number of artists are not getting meaningful support from government such that many of them are struggling in life, failing to meet the basic needs, despite that, there is uncontested evidence that, the country has a very rich arts talent. Arterial Network Swaziland is inviting artists to attend the dialogue, and should register because there are limited spaces.

Organisation

The organisation is looking at 40 to 50 artists of any genre to attend. As an outcome of the meeting, artists are expected to identify action points on what needs to be done urgently and further establish a committee/structure that will lead the process of implementing those action points. According to Dludlu the idea of the dialogue comes as a result of endless complaints, from all corners of the country where artists reside, and mostly, are economic challenges, where even at government level, the sector is getting a meagre allocation of less that E4 million every year from the national budget cake since 2001 and such does not make the sector to operate at all. “A presentation on how other countries support the arts, and have turned it to be part of the engine of the economy, will be made. However, the role of artists will also be unpacked to ensure that they understand their responsibilities and obligations to the fullest as they push their agenda,” said Dludlu. Dludlu concluded by sharing that Arterial Network Swaziland mourns the death of Smiles Makama, and wishes to pass condolences to the deceased’s family of the veteran musician, who passed away last Friday.

Skills

“The country has lost the leading valuable resource in music, who had incomparable creative skills in making and playing traditional music instruments from natural vegetation. This has made him tour the world with this unique instrument, and it is sad that such talent back home is not recognised and he has died like an ordinary man on the street when he had done so much.  It is very unfortunate that he has died before the country had put in place a formal structure and system to share his knowledge and skills with children and young people in communities.May his soul Rest in Peace.’’ 

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