Prioritise arts, culture for children: NACZ
THE National Arts Council of Zimbabwe (NACZ) has encouraged prioritisation of arts and culture in the growth of children. The remarks were made last week by NACZ director Nicholas Moyo at the Africa Day Celebrations held at Convent High School in Bulawayo.
In his address, Moyo said it was critical that young generations were taught and adopt their African culture.
“The main driver of Nigeria’s economy is what we call African movies. Film plays an important role in Nigeria and is one of the major contributors in their country. Most of the movies that we watch either come from Hollywood or Bollywood and that is a huge industry in those countries,” he said.
“In recognition of that importance in achieving agenda 2063. It is also important that in Zimbabwe we play our role and I want to congratulate this school (Convent High) for standing out clearly in contributing to the economy of this country. It is important that we place arts and culture in the centre of the growth of our children.”
Moyo said there was need for schools and such community groups as Intwasa to come together so to teach learners traditional dances and culture.
“Bulawayo actually prides itself for having one of the most powerful consistent female traditional dancers in this country and this school can benefit from that and most of them are located in Matshobana,” he said.
“We can create these synergies with community groups, here we have got the executive of Intwasa. We can create these synergies and help grow our understanding of our arts and culture.”
People should also engage in activities which fight against early child marriages in the country.
“Allow me to echo out what was said in the previous presentation that no to child marriages.
“We will continue as parents, teachers and students to refuse that to happen,” he said.
“We think that it has nothing to do with our culture, it has nothing to do with our traditions, anything that is evil is evil and the production that talked about that is important for us to talk about ‘No to child marriages’.”
Moyo indicated that it is important to continue to fight the drug abuse menace in the country which is destroying the future of the youths.
“We are also saying no to skin lighteners, black is beautiful. Never look at yellow bones and want to become like them. Allow me to say again no to prescribed gender roles, you know our societies and traditions have taught us that some roles are manly, but instead some women are good at them. So we should fight against that, we should put a stop to that,” he added.