Local creatives get business-savvy
"It is unfair that most initiatives start in the cosmopolitan provinces of Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal. Why not Mpumalanga? We wanted to start this programme where other people usually end."
MBOMBELA – Dumisani Dlamini, chief financial officer at the National Arts Council (NAC), was speaking after the graduation ceremony of 31 Lowveld entrepreneurs and artists at the Riverside Government Complex on Friday.
The graduates were awarded certificates after completing a funded six-week intensive course focused on entrepreneurial skills, financial management, marketing and business management.
It is part of a three-year programme funded by the NAC in partnership with Tshwane University of Technology and the Department of Culture, Sport and Recreation, and will benefit 90 students locally, as well as in the Northern Cape and North West provinces.
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Dlamini said this focus on the “creative industry” aims to reduce people’s dependency on the state for grants, and to help them think independently and use funding in a different way to make their businesses self-sustainable.
Artists need to take themselves seriously. We want them to understand who they are and what they are worth. There is a market out there, the products work, we just need to structure it and manage it properly,” he said.
“This programme hopes to equip people to go beyond their art skills and into business.”
The 31 graduates are a diverse group; ranging from those who run performing arts programmes, a theatre group which takes school set-work books and turns them into plays to make learning easier for pupils, traditional artists, and a designer who makes dresses out of plastic to create awareness
about rhino poaching.
Nomahlubi Nkosi and Lindeka Mandlazi started JP Trading, a sewing business which makes beautiful bead art, jewellery and other interesting accessories. Nkosi said their product is “taking the traditional and making it modern”.
Enos Sambo, who runs the Ehlanzeni Arts Academy, also graduated from the programme. Nelisiwe Mkhatshwa has four full-time and eight part-time workers at her business which makes cushions, handbags and other similar items. She said the course helped her to learn more about managing a business, especially how to price her products.
“I never included bank charges or transport costs into my pricing. This course has been both eye-opening and most interesting,” she said.
