African Artists’ Foundation Hones Students’ Creative Skills

Uchechukwu Nnaike As part of its obligation to give back to the society, the African Artists’ Foundation recently launched the Youth Empowerment through Contemporary Arts (YECA), a mentorship programme targeting the youth population in communities in Lagos State through art courses, mentorship and exhibition opportunities.

According to the foundation, the aim of YECA is to provide vocational training, the acquisition of livelihood skills, and a solid extra-curricular outlet for youths in secondary schools and to position art as a viable career path.

At the end of the pilot programme, sponsored by Ford Foundation and partnered by Nokia Microsoft, YECA said it plans to develop a curriculum to be presented for adoption in public secondary schools in Lagos State.

Speaking at the end of the photography class for students of Community Senior Secondary School, Mushin, the Coordinator and Facilitator of the programme, Mr. Olayinka Stephen, said the initiative is aimed at encouraging high standard practice of art in Nigeria and Africa, as well as getting the youths interested and prepared early so that they will grow to become professional artists that would represent Nigeria and Africa well.

He said the 0-week programme for senior secondary one and two (SS1 and SS2) students includes training in visual arts, fine and applied art, culture, contemporary art, among others.

Stephen regretted that art education is on the decline in the country, evidenced by the dearth of art teachers in senior secondary schools, “some schools don’t have all for junior and senior classes, they don’t do art at all and art is integrated into other courses so when you don’t get teachers to teach students, how will they get the skills.

It is also to make the students self-reliant because we don’t know what the future will hold, but they will have something to fall back on.”

At the end of the programme, he said the foundation would organize an exhibition where the participating students would show their works to the public.

The students were divided into four groups with four sub-themes, Hand Work, Street and School Games, Portraiture and Election and were expected to take photographs to depict their themes and to tell stories with their photographs.