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Showbiz Correspondent
THE Minister of Youth, Sport, Arts and Recreation, Kirsty Coventry, says she wants to make a positive change in the lives of artistes during her tenure.
She said this on the sidelines of her familiarisation tour of Bulawayo arts centres last week.
There has been an outcry from artistes who have continuously expressed their disgruntlement of being met by government officials but with no one addressing their concerns. In the past five years, there have been four consultative meetings with artistes and four arts ministers, Coventry being the latest.
The artistes have been in unison that all they want is change and their grievances to be addressed.
Asked whether she had inherited minutes of her predecessors’ meetings with artistes, Minister Coventry said she has been reading up on the issues.
“I’ve been reading a lot these couple of months. I want to be someone who makes a change. I never spoke about winning gold medals before I did it. So if I set my mind at doing something, I want to make sure that we’re doing it properly and one of those is aligning all the policies and all the structures. We don’t have policies that are really helping protect all our artistes across the genres,” said Minister Coventry.
She said what was paramount with regards to her meetings with artistes was the issue of piracy.
“We have to figure out how best to support them in those specific areas when it comes to protecting themselves and their artwork,” said the minister.
Online Reporter