Zimbabwe Edutainment director Lloyd Mudonhi has urged students to take arts seriously in light of the requirements of the new curriculum.
By Sandra Maricho
Mudonhi, who is running a schools programme where pupils are competing in various activities such as poetry, dance and singing, said it was of paramount importance for students to embrace arts.
“Some pupils are not academically talented and they would benefit by venturing into arts,” said Mudonhi.
“Our organisation focuses on identifying, nurturing and promoting performing arts in primary and secondary schools in the Midlands province and this has given us the revelation that indeed youths and pupils can make it if they venture into arts.”
He said the programme had received support from arts stakeholders in the province.
“The participants perform in three disciplines, that is poetry, dance and singing competitions.
This mode of arrangement has, therefore, given the pupils a wider choice,” he said.
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Mudonhi acknowledged the financial constraints the arts industry was facing in light of the harsh economic climate, but urged the young to persevere.
“Funding has been a major challenge that hinders all our action plans to cover all schools in the province, but we are still limited to urban schools and a few nearby rural schools in this programme of edutainment.
This is the case with several other arts players who are affected by financial constraints, but my message is that this is just a passing phase, there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said .
Mudonhi made a special appeal.
“We are appealing to stakeholders who can partner with us because we cannot adequately resource all the pupils’ needs in our programme.
We recognise the effort and hard work put in by the pupils who show commitment to performing arts, but if we can get funding the project will grow even bigger,” he said.
Zimbabwe Edutainment was established in 2011 and it has been identifying arts talent in schools since then.
Some of the identified students had the opportunity to perform at Star Brite Zim.
This year’s competitions are being held under the theme Umuntu (learner) with ubuntu and academic excellence.
“Parents need to support their children and embrace the mantra that arts is business that will transform their children’s lives,” Mudonhi said.
