Crafters to get top price for works
"THE department of arts and culture plan to group crafters together and train them to be able to create professional products that can be sold at top prices" arts and culture deputy minister, Rejoice Mabudafhasi
LIMPOPO – THE department of arts and culture plans to group crafters together and train them to be able to create professional products that can be sold at top prices.
This was according to arts and culture deputy minister, Rejoice Mabudafhasi, who spoke during the launch of vaTsonga Cultural Day, which was launched in conjunction with the celebration of Africa Day at the Giyani Multipurpose Centre on Saturday.
Mabudafhasi said her department realised there were many crafters in South Africa, yet they lacked direction or knowledge on how to craft and sell their work professionally.
“In some cases you’d find that somebody comes and buy your work cheap, yet go out to sell it at a higher price than they bought it from you… something which you could have done it yourself if you had training skill on how to craft and market your work professionally,” she said.
“As government we want to unite them through the formation of cooperatives where we would be able to train them as cooperatives and give them money to establish crafting business such as opening their craft shops or anything that will add value to their work as compared to when it is being sold in the streets,” she said.
From next year, the department would start campaigns that would aim at exposing crafters to professional market so that they would not have to sell their work in the streets at a cheaper price whereas there’s a lucrative market for it. This includes subsidising crafters with funds to enable them to open up crafters’ shops, she said.
The deputy minister promised to support VaTsonga Cultural Day, held annually in Giyani. Meanwhile Eric Nkobani, the president of Swilombe Music Association in Giyani, who is also the deputy president of Cultural and Creative Industries Federation of South Africa (CCIFSA), the organisation which supports artists nationally, welcomed the minister’s intervention.
“The minister’s willingness to help artists goes with our vision to help artists make a living through their artwork,” explained Nkobani, who is well-known by his stage name, Penny-Penny.
According to him, the CCIFSA would push the government to implement laws that convicted people who pirated their music.
“We’re tired of watching our music being sold cheap in the streets and yet when the culprits are arrested, magistrates release them,” he said.
