Arts festival showcases untapped youth talent

September 09, 2009 - Richmore Tera points out in his article how the annual multi-disciplinary arts carnival — the Young Africa Arts Festival — which took place in Chitungwiza at the weekend (September 5th - 6th) , was a reflection of the abundance of untapped talent that lies in most high-density suburbs throughout Zimbabwe.

Tera pointed out how in such places youths lack proper support in terms of instruments and infrastructure to use, yet they are gifted with some of the finest talents whose lustre only becomes evident after numerous stakeholders in the arts industry chip in with the necessary resources and expertise.

Read full article HERE.

CIYDA Says: It is enviable how Zimbabwe is graced with various youth talent yet at the same time reproachable to note such talent going untapped. Naturally the ignominy is born out of such talent not being tapped into but the shame that CIYDA can rightfully attribute to this situation is that, not only do we notice the talent, but we do nothing about it until someone comes along and realises the potential before we do or it's too late.

At the moment young Zimbabweans performers feel the need to emigrate to "greener pastures" in order for their talents to be realised. I mentioned in our September newsletter of an artist, Chengetai who has come very far and is continuing in her work to be a world renowned musician, albeit in France. Thankfully stars like Chengetai are still willing to come home and perform in association with CIYDA and be an inspiration to other young people. But that shouldn't end there.

In his article Tera laments the lack of support with regards to instruments for performers, but I would like to extend this further and say there is lack of support in general from what we at CIYDA have gathered. In our quest to bridge that gap between such Zimbabwean talent and would be supporters, CIYDA established the Social and Cultural Integration department which seeks, amongst other things to provide a platform for such young Zimbabwean talent as well as information that helps them break through the clutter in performing arts today. CIYDA's new media drive and social networking will undoubtedly go a long way in bringing such talent to light in Zimbabwe and get young people talking amongst themselves, as further highlighted in the article published in the CIYDA Knowledge Center, on how youths can learn from each other.

With the proposed Zimbabwe Youth Development Festival (ZYDFest 2009) taking shape, CIYDA will not only look to give such youths a networking platform but one to perform as the festival day will be capped with various home grown cultural performances.

So lets wake up Zimbabwean people and realize the talent in our midst. If not for this immediate unfortunate stream of marginalized and gifted youths, lets do it as a first step in fostering effective realization and developing of talent as a country.

Disclaimer: - Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information supplied herein from other websites, CIYDA cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Unless otherwise indicated, opinions transferred from other websites and expressed herein are those of the author of the ORIGINAL article and do not necessarily represent the views of CIYDA, it's Executive Director and the CIYDA Team.

What is CIYDA
Contemporary Indigenous Youth Development Africa (CIYDA) is an non-profit organisation founded in 2008 and is based in Harare, Zimbabwe. CIYDA is working to develop and empower the youths of Zimbabwe for the benefits of the nation and Africa as a continent through the use of new media, information technology and networking amongst other things. Through these drivers, CIYDA aims to facilitate an information hub and service provision in the areas of Business Start-up, Social & Cultural Integration, Socio-economic Mentoring and Volunteering. CIYDA currently has a network connection of over 500 Zimbabwean youths in many countries amongst them, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, United Kingdom, United States of America, Australia and Canada.