The Arts Factory

In downtown Harare, The Arts Factory is making a positive impact on the earning capacity of young, emerging Zimbabwean artists and are guiding their growth from amateurs, to professionals. Singers, songwriters, authors, filmmakers, sculpturers, designers and painters, all share a space in the cultural center and attend daily workshops where they can improve their skills, as well as learn the business side of the creative industries. The space has also be utilized by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition which is comprised of more than 350 civil society organizations and works as a collective response by Zimbabwean civics to the multi faceted crisis facing the nation.

Highlight: Popular Zimbabwean singer Dudu Manhenga says: The young women artists that attend the workshops are lucky to receive such workshops, with guidance and advice from other women artists also a luxury that has never been enjoyed by female artists of Zimbabwe in the past. The impact of this guidance and training is already being seen, with several young women artists now emerging as empowered and professional performers who have graduated from wanna-bes to valid performers on the public stage, and in some cases progressed to forming and leading bands of their own.