Time for youth to take a leap, express talent and create opportunities

Minister of Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa’s speech at the imbizo to launch the Arts Incubator Programme at Artscape yesterday.

PROGRAMME director, musical icons and veterans, teachers and students, ladies and gentlemen.

We gathered here today to launch the Arts Incubator Programme. It is a new and unique model to provide skills and opportunities to the young.

The aim is to introduce arts as a career to our youth and to encourage them to identify opportunities for themselves.

I am glad to announce that it is for the very first time that such an initiative is undertaken in the history of this country.

The Incubator Programme will be an after-school activity. It will keep our youth off the streets. It will give them something to do to express their talent. In this way, it will give meaning and purpose to their lives.

If you are a young person who has not discovered their purpose in life through the opportunities offered by the incubator programme, you may have no business to be here.

We want young people to discover themselves and their talents so that they can contribute to rebuilding this country.

It is a programme that will have satellites or hubs in the townships and rural areas. This is where the majority of our jobless young people live.

Let me say it is with great joy and happiness that we mark the launch of this initiative.

It happens when the students and youth of this country are rediscovering their mission and purpose.

I believe it is a good development that it is students who are in the forefront of making our country to grapple with the issue of statues.

The young are making us as a country and a people to critically examine our identity, and how far we have come.

It is a welcome development that artists use their creative, intellectual skills and intense passion and energy to move the country forward.

Our country is struggling with the birth pangs of the new. We wish to salute the youth for being in the forefront of redefining the heritage land- scape. The youth are artists that are carving the new soul and identity of the country.

As Franz Fanon said: “Every generation must discover its mission to fulfil it or betray.” Your time has come to use your creative energy and talent to move us forward.

You are the ones that we have been waiting for.

The launch of the Arts Incubator Programme takes place when our democracy and freedom turns 21 years.

The theme for this year is “Celebrating the Beginning of the Third Decade of Freedom towards Radical Economic Transformation”.

We have entered an age of maturity on Freedom Day in April this year.

For decades our youth had no outlets for their creativity. They had no opportunities to turn their lives around.

The arts incubators are to help the young to reclaim their lives.

This programme will be a giant stride into the future where arts and culture will be the golden thread that reconnects and unifies the community.

It will provide an intergenerational platform where the young learn from the old. And the old will pass on their knowledge and experience to the youth.

The incubators will provide a learning experience to polish skills as a musician and artist. They will teach the young how to strive for excellence to compete at a global level.

Above all, they will provide opportunities for the young to compete with their peers in the country and in the whole world.

They will provide a plat- form for local talent to compete and shine on the world stage through cultural exchanges and international competition.

As we turn 21 years, this is yet another milestone.

We are at that point where the youth of this country have a right to ask: “What can arts and culture do for us?”

And we say: “What can you do to use arts and culture to rebuild this society?”

We are proud to say, the arts incubators will provide skills development and training. They will provide a platform to shine and expose their talent.

They will open opportunities to produce cultural products that will define the soul of this country. They will help develop and grow audiences.

Above all, they will expose the talented to the market and turn them into business people. The arts are big business now.

All that we want to achieve through the arts incubators is to create an enabling environment for all people, especially the young, to take full responsibility for their lives.

This Arts Incubator Programme is to stimulate the creative sector to provide opportunities to our artists, young and old.

Young people must know from an early age that through the arts they can be small businesses. They will in this way learn to create employment and promote economic selfreliance.

Ultimately, it is to show that the arts do contribute to the economic growth and development.

Arts and culture are not a hobby for those who have nothing better to do.

In fact, recent mapping studies on the economic impact of arts and culture reveal that the sector contributes R90.5 billion to the economy. This is about 3 percent of the GDP.

For us, the arts incubators are the cornerstone towards radical socio-economic transformation.

We are on an urgent mission to empower young people with important tools and resources to produce content that reflects their creativity.

It is up to the young to discover their mission to fulfil it. You are the ones that this country has been waiting for.

The arts incubators are here to make sure that you fulfil your mission better than the generation of Mandela. This is a new beginning.

The duty of the young is to improve upon the past. Your time has come.

Thank you, ngiyabonga, re a leboga.