Tanzania: Women Artists Get Jack up from Cigarette Firm

Source from:  IPP Media (tz) 09/07/2012

Tanzania Cigarette Company (TCC) has pledged more support to local artists, besides calling for full involvement of women in the growing industry. Speaking at the opening of the clay and metal sculpture exhibition to empower women in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday, TCC chairman and chief executive officer Majd Abdou said there is a rising aspiration in the country which needs to be intensely nurtured through ongoing commitment to sustain the cultural heritage of the country with a particular focus on arts. "Supporting the local talent pool of artists will not only help in promoting the local arts and culture, but it will also give our artists the opportunity to make a decent living out of their talents," he observed. He noted that he hoped it would spur other companies and individuals to support the nascent industry. Paying tribute to Vipaji Foundation and Alliance Fran?aise for providing the opportunity to bring together the artists, he noted that there is a cultural aspiration the community needs to nurture: "As one of my predecessors and initiator of TCC sponsored arts and culture programmes once said: "The greatest artists have always relied on committed patrons and Tanzania has a wealth of artistic talent that needs such patronage." He said TCC is committed to supporting the arts, thanking Vipaji Foundation for its commitment in promoting local arts, culture and talent. He said Vipaji Foundation Workshop Programme founder, Sister Jean Pruitt's devotion to arts is deeply inspirational. The exhibition aims at empowering women, an acknowledgement of the significant role that they play in shaping and developing society in general and arts and culture in particular. The Japanese Ambassador to Tanzania, Masaki Okada said it was important that while Tanzanian women had shown participation in politics and business, they were now also performing well in the arts industry. The Alliance Fran?aise Country Director Sulivan Benetier said they work to promote and encourage artistic exchange, to make the cultural network stronger, and provide access to everyone. He said the exhibition was the result of a sculpture workshop organised by Vipaji Foundation, which was created in 2010 to empower women artists. The metal workshop took place at the Studio of Ugandan Metal Sculptor, Francis Odoch, who has been an instructor in clay work with Dogodogo Centre at the TCC Club since 2007. The 10 women who participated in the workshop were selected from University of Dar es Salaam art students and several others had never worked with metals before. Enditem