Celebrating Culture Week

all provinces to mark the Culture Week.
The activities will culminate with commemorations of the Unesco World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development on Saturday.
The programme is co-ordinated by the National Arts Council head office and hosted by the provincial offices of the council in collaboration with many stakeholders in the arts and culture sector operating at community, district, provincial and national levels and involving the ministries of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, Home Affairs, Youth and Empowerment and Women’s Affairs.
In her international message to mark the World Day of Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, Irina Bokova, the director-general of Unesco, has declared: “Each culture leaves its distinctive mark on the vast field of cultures of the world. Together they co-exist the many facets of the single humanity, shimmering and diverse . . .
“The World Day for Cultural Diversity affords us an opportunity to turn the spotlight on the vitality inherent in the diversity of all cultures, without exception, and on the pressing need to protect diversity and make it the central plank of development strategies.
“The day also affords each one of us an opportunity to ponder over ways and means of being humanly and practically involved in building tolerance towards all of the world cultures.”
The Zimbabwe Culture Week programme, which kicked off with a national launch at the Gweru Civic Centre on May 14, is aimed at providing an opportunity for the people of Zimbabwe to appreciate the diversity of arts and cultural expressions of Zimbabwe and the world.
It also seeks to promote national, regional and national social integration through the arts and culture and allowing the public to appreciate the employment generation capacity of the arts and culture industry.
It is also provides a public forum, in all districts and provinces, “for exchanging ideas and views between artistes and other cultural workers on aspects of culture and development at the community level”.
It is hoped that the week-long programme of diverse cultural activities will draw the attention of the public to the importance of celebrating the Unesco World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.
The most critical innovation in this year’s Culture Week programmes is involvement by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe of a number civil organisations in the arts and culture working with the council’s provincial officers in producing week-long schedules of arts and culture activities at community level for each of the 10 provinces of Zimbabwe.
Equally innovative was the strategy of holding provincial launches of the Culture Week on different days with May 16 for the Harare launch; May 18 for Bulawayo and Masvingo launches; May 19 for Mashonaland West; May 20 for Manicaland, Matabeleland North, Mashonaland Central and Matabeleland South and May 24 for the Mashonaland East provincial launch.
This arrangement offers our media the opportunity to feature the launches in their daily coverage of the celebrations and to project the outcomes of the dialogues as well as the significance and nature of the diverse forms of cultural expression being featured in each community.
Also innovative has been the involvement of traditional leaders in the choice of venues for holding the Culture Week celebrations and in hosting events.
For instance, the involvement of Chief Chikwiro of Mudzi, Chief Svosve of Marondera and Chief Makwarimba of Wedza, in hosting exhibitions of traditional food; traditional medicine, traditional attire; performances of theatre, choral music, poetry and traditional dances among others. Chiefs are the critical custodians of our cultural heritage.
The wide diversity of arts and culture activities that constitute the programme of the year’s Culture Week and commemoration of the World Day of Cultural Diversity of Dialogue and Development is a demonstration of the vibrancy of Zimbabwe’s cultural sector on one hand and the ever growing capacity of the arts and culture associations to collaborate with the National Arts Council in growing the cultural industry and fostering the diversity of cultural creativity and expressions and safeguarding the nation’s intangible cultural heritage.
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