The Sunday News
U40 Cultural Leadership Fellows Charmaine Mudau and Lisa Sidambe, who is also U40 Cultural Leadership Fellow and Programme Director of Global Affairs, participated at the Women in Arts Forum at the recently held Intwasa Arts Festival koBulawayo.
The pair said the event was a success and opened new avenues for women in arts.
“This year the festival ran under the theme ‘realities and experiences’. It was indeed all about realities and amazing experiences. It was an honour to be given a platform to talk policy issues on the protection of the girl child in the arts. The industry tends to turn a blind eye and omit the protection of the girl child in the arts, yet she is an asset in the industry.
“What stood out for me in this workshop was the diversity in the room. It was well attended and almost every genre in the creative sector in Bulawayo was represented. It was all about celebrating the women in the arts and challenging the status quo.
It felt great realising that in as much as I was one of the few young female artistes I had so much to teach the older and legendary female creatives in Bulawayo. More so, I had the privilege to do this side by side with Lisa Thelma Sidambe.
I first knew Lisa when we were still students at the SPAA — Nhimbe and that was 10 years ago, then years later we are both U40 Nhimbe Cultural Leadership fellows talking policy and trying to add value to the industry as women in the arts.
Thank you, Nhimbe Trust and Intwasa Arts Festival, for the opportunity and platform to address issues affecting the girlchild in the arts and for letting the women in the arts challenge the status quo. It was about time,” said Mudau.
“In a world where women’s voices are not as audible as they should be, it is rewarding to be empowered with transformative competencies that would mould us into women who will disrupt spaces and challenge the status quo,” said Sidambe.
Meanwhile, Nhimbe Trust has been appointed to Unesco Interim committee. In December 2017 civil society organisations in attendance at the United Nations in Paris met to foster co-ordination within civil society in the meetings of the governing bodies of the 2005 Unesco Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, and its implementation.
Next to consultations on the presentation of the Civil Society Activity Report and on joint interventions on agenda items of relevance to Civil Society Organisation (CSO), the nearly 50 representatives of CSO held discussions how to organise CSO coordination in the future.
The assembly decided to set up an interim Steering Committee whose purpose was to propose to the 2005 CSO plenary in December 2018 the vision and alternative models of governance, codes of governance and structure for civil society co-ordination to act within the governing bodies of the Convention.
A set of criteria were identified for the composition of the interim Steering Committee. Some of its members were appointed by co-optation during the meetings while others were asked or volunteered to be place holders with the mandate to identify CSO in their respective region.
The interim steering committee that will be in place until December 2018 is composed of two representatives of each of Unesco’s six electoral groups — Africa, Arab states, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and North America, Eastern Europe and Latin America — and two from international organisations.
Committee members from Africa are Josh Nyapimbi of Nhimbe Trust and Daves Guzha/Tojo Roko-tomalala of Arterial Network.
Where possible, in the period December 2017-2018 the interim CSSC will also coordinate, monitor and evaluate the work of CSOs involved in the implementation of the 2005 Convention, in order to produce a future activity report orally whether orally or in writing follow up CSOs interaction with the Secretariat and Parties to secure resources for the widest participation of civil society organisations in future and to follow up civil society recommendations within the framework of the 2018-2019
Action Plan of Parties in coordination and consultation with the CSO plenary. — Nhimbe Trust Culture Lenses
