The Sunday News
Rumbidzai Mhlanga and Mollet Ndebele, Sunday Life Reporters
INSPIRED by the old adage, Two ants do not fail to pull one grasshopper because unity is strength, division is weakness, Pumula Youth Leadership Forum (PYLF) and artistes held a meeting last weekend aimed at supporting local talent.
To prove that Bulawayo has got talent the PYLF realised the importance of coming together and finding ways to mentor up-and-coming artistes so as to spruce up local talent.
Stanley Moyo, the PYLF’s public relations officer said the aim behind forming the forum was to find ways to help up-and-coming artistes achieve their goals.
“The Pumula Youth Leadership Forum was formed and registered in a bid to provide Pumula youth leaders and upcoming artistes with the opportunity to gather, discuss and freely express their points and views concerning local talent and issues affecting the youth and most importantly up-and-coming artistes,” he said.
“The meeting was called after we discovered that local artisanship is not promoted and supported effectively thus some talented youth lose confidence in themselves if not well supported. Hence this meeting was a way of finding ways of bringing change in our community as far as supporting local talent is concerned.”
In the meeting Moyo said artistes pointed out the struggles they face in the industry.
“What makes up-and-coming artistes seem invisible is that they are not given platforms to showcase their talents. Their products are not well packaged and they are sub-standard because most of them cannot afford professionals to help them produce professional music and videos that can match the standards and competition that is in the music industry,” he said.
Up-and-coming artistes and youth leaders came up with solutions that will help nurture local talent.
“We managed to come up with solutions that can help artistes gain the recognition they long for. We decided to involve different expertise dealing with monitoring, talent management, organising, marketing and motivating the local artistes as well as represent them in the PYLF Board. Artistes were urged to produce music and other products that are relevant to the local people, in that way it will be easy for the community to support them. They were also advised to create social media accounts for profiling and marketing themselves,” Moyo said.
Attending the meeting were youth leaders, music producers and talented young people from the community including the Member of Parliament for Pumula, Sichelesile Mahlangu.
