Some players in the creative industry have bemoaned lack of government commitment towards funding the School for the Arts.<\/p>\n
With the country having a few arts schools, Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) and other players succeeded in persuading the government to fund the Integrated Arts Development Project which led to the establishment of the Arts Savings and Credit Cooperative (Arts Sacco), Arts Production and Marketing Cooperative (APMC) and commencement of the project to establish a School for the Arts.<\/p>\n
The project was officially launched last year during Cosoma\u2019s 25th anniversary.<\/p>\n
However, despite government\u2019s commitment, little has been done to drive the establishment of the School for the Arts.<\/p>\n
Film Association of Malawi (Fama) President Ezaius Mkandawire, said the project has been neglected.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sad that the project has not been given the necessary attention despite the government committing itself. There is no money for the project at the moment,\u201d Mkandawire said.<\/p>\n
He said estimation for this year\u2019s funding was sent to the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cImplementing institution (Cosoma) worked with the government in particular Ministry of Finance on this and the estimation for the project was K5 billion,\u201d Mkandawire said.<\/p>\n
He said, this year, the project was to get at least K1.6 billion.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the government, this is going to be a good thing. This would be the only school for the arts in the country. It is therefore worth reminding the government that the creative sector is a big player in the economy of the country,\u201d the Fama president said.<\/p>\n
Musicians Union of Malawi (Mum) President, Reverend Chimwemwe Mhango, said it is unfortunate that the government has allocated nothing to the School for the Arts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe creative industry and musicians have been deprived of support for a long time and this is one area where the government could have shown its passion for arts,\u201d Mhango said.<\/p>\n
He said they were hoping that the Minister of Civic Education, Community Development and Culture would help them on the issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the time for the government not to change its plans. This project was announced in Parliament two years ago so there has to be that commitment to fund the project. We discussed with the minister on this issue and we hope things will work,\u201d the Mum leader said.<\/p>\n
Coordinator of the project, who is also Cosoma\u2019s Senior Licensing Officer, Rosario Kamanga, said construction has not started.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just hope that some of the players in the creative sector, who are Members of Parliament, will remember to discuss it in the house,\u201d Kamanga said.<\/p>\n
He said the School for the Arts will be built within Cosoma complex and that the culture minister already laid a foundation stone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has not committed any funds to the project within the 2018\/19 budget; so, nothing has happened yet and yet this is crucial,\u201d Kamanga said.<\/p>\n
He said the project is aimed at improving the artistic skills of creative persons.<\/p>\n
Chiumia said recently that they would take up the issue, adding that the government is aware of several challenges the creative sector is facing.<\/p>\n
She said the government, through her ministry, would continue to work tirelessly with all stakeholders to ensure that the industry grows and flourishes for the betterment of the socio-economic development of the country.<\/p>\n
Several players in the creative industry have bemoaned the lack of support from the government on several issues and that includes putting up structures to train artists most of whom rely on inborn talents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some players in the creative industry have bemoaned lack of government commitment towards funding the School for the Arts. With the country having a few arts schools, Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) and other players succeeded in persuading the government to fund the Integrated Arts Development Project which led to the establishment of the Arts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":66363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66364,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66359\/revisions\/66364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}