Business and Arts South Africa (Basa) is not stopping progress in its aims of achieving cohesion and valuable partnerships between the arts and business sectors.
Basa is well known for the work it does for the arts community and for corporates, by putting businesses in touch with creatives in order to forge partnerships that will help both parties achieve their goals.
For the arts communities, this is especially important as it is often underfunded and lesser recognised than sports or other sectors.
In 2017 Basa teamed up with the Department of Arts and Culture and the National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund to create a new programme called the DAC Debut Programme for which the department has created a fund to aid artists in the following ways, as explained by the Minister of Arts and Culture, Nathi Mthethwa.
Read: Basa searches for organisations to take part in their workshops
“The Debut Programme creates training, mentoring and funding opportunities for young artists from all disciplines.”
The programme is a 38-week training course that employs Basa’s education and mentorship programme to assist young emerging artists who are just about to break into the industry by supporting them, assisting them and encouraging them.
This entails teaching the artists about the nitty-gritty parts of the industry – not just conceptualising their projects – such as finding and securing start-up as well as maintenance costs for their projects, among other things.
Mthethwa added, “This new programme has been very carefully initiated as a way of empowering emerging artists across all creative spheres, to take up their rightful role in making this a reality.”
In addition, the partnering institutions have made the competition accessible to artists from all walks of life by encouraging entries via the social media platform, Whatsapp.
Find out how to enter by visiting the Basa website
Entries close on 19 June.
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