New project aimed at supporting young Zimbabwean creatives launched

Kay Media Africa and UK-based Reprezent Radio are collaborating to deliver Scripts and Bars, a digital content creation project that brings together 100 creatives from Zimbabwe and UK to collaborate across the Music and Literature sectors. The project is supported by British Council in partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

This exciting new project seeks to enhance the digital content creation capacity and enterprise skills of creatives and arts organisations in Zimbabwe whilst strengthening their livelihoods, supporting job creation, and increasing their access to networks.

Creators and arts organisations within the music and literature sectors will go through digital and enterprise skills training and will be awarded grants for digital content creation projects to explore new and sustainable business models.

Covid19 did more than bring regular income streams to a complete standstill; it has made visible the fragility of cultural work and project-based income generation in Africa’s Creative and Cultural Industries. Therefore, the project aims to assist the young creatives and arts organisations by:

• Growing young people’s digital and entrepreneurial skills through collaboration with creative organisations.
• Enhancing their art making, support livelihoods and job creation.
• Stimulating Zimbabwean creative organisations and professionals in digital content creation, connecting individuals and organisations in the Music and Literature sectors to share, learn and collaborate.
• Developing and growing skills that lead to more professional opportunities for Zimbabwean creatives using digital content creation.
• Supporting resilience of creative organisations, Hubs, and individual creatives by building competencies and strengthening them.

What’s in-store

The Scripts and Bars project runs from November 2021 to September 2022. The programme will feature an exciting array of:

• Business support services and master class clinics
• Capacity building workshops
• Collaborative Digital Content creation
• Showcase events and roundtable talks
• Mixer/Meet Up Networking Cocktail Events

The events and workshops will be facilitated by industry experts from Zimbabwe and the UK and organised by creative hubs including Comexposed, Page Poetry Alive, Khura Agency from Zimbabwe and UK-based hub, Reprezent.

Scripts and Bars programme will contribute to exploring what the future of local digital content could look like and give young artists and creative hubs the opportunity to showcase their work and build networks.

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