BADPLAAS – The Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation hosted a workshop for
women in the arts industry in the province. The workshop was held at the Manzana
Arts Centre in Badplaas on October 17, 2013.
The workshop was part of the
implementation of the Mzansi Golden Economy whose purpose is to empower women in
the Arts with business management skills and also afford them exposure to
available funding opportunities for their businesses through economic networking
participation.
One hundred and twenty (120) women from various sectors of
the arts industry from all 18 municipalities of the Province were provided with
the opportunity and platform to engage with different government departments and
funding institutions such as MEGA, SEDA and NYDA and were also given practical
business skills including how to put together business plans, how to draw up
business budgets and also how to cost and access markets for their products.
Says, Sibongile Nkosi, Spokesperson for the Department, “our aim is to
provide information to our female artists for the purpose of building,
empowering and educating them in order to break the cycle of poverty,
unemployment and inequality. We have realized that though funding is available,
our women lack the necessary skills to run sustainable businesses and as a
result after accessing funding, their businesses fail due to mismanagement of
funds and failure to cost their products competitively. Our hope is that through
workshops such as these, we capacitate our women and re-affirm them as leaders
in arts, culture and heritage industries and also to help them build competitive
creative industries in the province,” she continues to say.
The Women in Art
workshops are powered by the National Department of Arts and Culture, so far 3
provinces including the Mpumalanga province have hosted the workshops, the next
stop is the Limpopo province.
