By Kennedy Nyavaya
Voice to Represent (Voice2Rep), a new annual programme under Magamba Network’s Arts for Change initiative, is set to support the extensive amplification of youthful voices as well as participation in national processes through music.
In a country where freedom is largely guaranteed before speech and uncertain after, depending on who and what has been said, the arts — in different forms — have become a solace of expression for those that dare challenge the status quo.
In an interview with Standard Style last week, Arts for Change projects lead Mantate Mlotshwa described the project launched in August as a tool to ignite pertinent conversations and keep leaders accountable.
“With Voice2Rep we are specifically looking at how do we bring young people that have the ability to sing and not just that, but have interest in singing socially conscious music, that identifies issues, amplifies community experiences and then also use that to start conversations,” said Mlotshwa.
“A few weeks ago, the project opened up a call for short audio and video entries into their first competition themed “Mic check can you hear me now?”.
Ten finalists were then chosen from over 300 entries to go through mentorship with established musicians, producers and other arts stakeholders before getting a chance to battle it out for US$1 500 and a video recording deal during the recently ended Shoko Festival.
According to Mlotshwa, the programme was open to youths from across the country’s diverse backgrounds with a wide range of topics, in a bid to give young people a chance to portray the future they want through music.
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“When you say social justice in Zimbabwe, .most young people think politics and governance so they do not want to get involved. But Voice2Rep has been about being able to communicate social justice as the issues being experienced at home like abuse, drug use and child pregnancies among others,” she said.
“It is about inspiring young people to be active citizens, but beyond that also being able to use their music to reach out to their peers that can then participate. Zimbabwean youths are talented, but the biggest question that has been there over the years has been: How do young people feed into the development process?”
Mlotshwa also revealed that they will soon be starting a film fellowship with a focus on teaching young people all aspects of documenting impactful stories through the lenses.
“We are saying how do we help young people, aspiring film makers to also learn, how to use their phones to document stories and if they do not have them, how do we give them access to phones that can be used to document stories and come back to be taught how to edit,” she said.
