Tinashe Muchuri - Author/Poet
Engaging in the performing arts allows children to step into others’ shoes, promoting empathy and understanding. By portraying diverse characters and cultures, kids learn to respect differences and embrace similarities, becoming informed global citizens. Besides fun, the arts cultivate lifelong skills: empathy, communication, confidence, teamwork, problem-solving, and adaptability. They also foster creativity, critical thinking, and physical fitness. This holistic approach aids in personal growth, emotional expression, and memory while instilling values that benefit children throughout their lives. The Besana Mail Weekly Guest Show Host Onita Sibanda (OS) discusses the subject in detail with Tinashe Muchuri (TM).
OS: Mahwachini makamu angu. Welcome to our roundtable discussion. Our guest tonight is Tinashe Muchuri. Our topic is Importance of Performing Arts Education to children. We welcome you Mr Muchuri! Many people know you or have heard of you. You are a multi- award winning journalist and author. But, may you kindly introduce yourself.
TM: I am a performing artist covering film, television drama, poetry and storytelling. I am also a writer of fiction and non-fiction. I am interested in researching around indigenous knowledge systems. I am a father and a husband.
OS: Wonderful! I believe most of us cannot wait to hear one of your poems. What does the arts industry look like in Zimbabwe?
TM: As I speak we do not have an arts industry in Zimbabwe. An industry means you have well functioning chain, for now it is neither weak nor broken. In Zimbabwe for example we lack financiers of the products such as films. This means films are produced at zero budget or at a low budget level. Workers in the art sector not industry are lowly paid and do not normally rely on their income from their sweat.
Again those in the literary sector are also suffering because the book chain is broken. Publishers are targeting the updated curriculum textbooks because they offer better returns. They are sold direct to schools unlike general reading material. Bookshops sell more motivational books than general reading. However, the non-fiction writers rely more on speaking events fees than from book sells. This is the prevailing scenario. A few rely on advertising as models. To add salt to our challenges, the art production is sponsored by foreign embassies stationed in Zimbabwe. It is like artists are being fed from next door.
OS: Are the arts organisations doing enough to promote arts in schools?
TM: There are arts organisations working with school age like Nhimbe with its Schools Performing Arts programme, Chipawo, and many others. However, these organisations are not covering all schools. They target a small section of the schools leaving behind others. This starves other kids who crave to be included in the arts sector. The schools are through the Visual Performing Arts (VPA) subject also giving every child a chance on art. The challenge is on finances. Financial support is not enough.
OS: We have seen some children writing books and in performing arts but later disappears on the scene. What could have happened?
TM: When you are a child at school you have no responsibilities. Again you are at least free to work at school. Once you are out there you discover that art is not an industry you have to be the fittest to survive in this jungle. It requires not only talent but networking skills. Not many are patient to wait, they quit and others are deprived by the careers they choose after school. Those who immediately hop into marriage, the matrimonial rules discourage them. So, there are many vices that limits their progression into being full artists. Art is not regarded as work. Mtukudzi said it is a lifestyle. So not all around an artist encourage the lifestyle but emphasize on an 8 to 5pm work.
OS: Art is a lifestyle and not work I like that, meaning it is in you, it is who you are. What is your advice to parents with children talented in arts?
TM: Those with talented children in arts, let them be free. While at school art teaches children alertness, develops their cognitive skills, human relations, emotional intelligence and help them desist from drug abuse.
Art empowers children to avoid early marriages, drug abuse and fight child rights issues. A responsible parent encourages own children to explore all their talents. It is healthy.
OS: How can arts help in fighting drug abuse and child marriages?
TM: Through education and entertainment as children play different roles in drama, dance, poetry, storytelling, drug abuse and child marriages will be discussed. This empowers the children in knowing their rights and responsibilities in the society. They too became aware of the dangers of drug abuse and early sex.
OS: I have heard some parents discouraging their children to participate in traditional dances at school hanzi chivanhu not knowing that children are empowered through that. It also keeps them busy. As a scholar and researcher, what is the state of indigenous languages inclusion in arts, academics and social development? And how can Hwange benefit?
TM: It is important that children be encouraged to learn their language. It is hard for a development officer to empower local communities if they are not knowledgeable of the community’s language. You often here of squabbles from communities bemoaning the appointment of teachers who could not speak their languages. It damages the children ‘s appreciation of learning. If they have teachers who can speak their language they enjoy their learning and the community develops too. Learning own languages empowers the community. Learning Nambya therefore is the pillar that anchors Hwange. It should therefore be encouraged as those at higher learning institutes fight for the study of local languages at the highest level.
Indigenous languages are an endangered in this era of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Education 5.0 is focusing more on learning that produces products that are tangible. This is why they emphasize on science subjects and education that produces the products. Learning of languages at some higher learning institutes has been stopped. This affects the other languages that were recognized ten years ago through the amended Zimbabwe Constitution Amendment (No.20) 2013.
The policies forget that indigenous languages are the bedrock of any development. It also discourages students at secondary education from putting much effort on indigenous languages because there is no motivation. This endangers the development of humanity in our society.
OS: So true. It is time we encourage our children to appreciate chiNambya. I’m glad that we have Nambya books that are now used in schools.
TM: There is more good about writing books in your language from within the knowledge basis of your own culture. It empowers the community and its people.
OS: As a journalist, what is your comment on the reporting of children’s issues in the mainstream media?
TM: It is in the sorry state as children are only reported as victims and not achievers in their own right. Children issues should include the voice of the child. Without the involvement of the voice of the child, the child issues our community grapple with are not easy to handle. Media stream media should also be national and not focus on accessible urban areas. It should touch the remotest areas of this country articulating issues affecting the child.
OS: How do you see a media house like The Besana Mail helping children?
TM: Besana Mail being a community media, it is with the children and speaks from the children and with the children. Besana Mail is the voice of the children. It empowers children to be responsible citizens and guard against vices that endangers their joys. It is encouraging that children in the remote area of Hwange have a voice that other children in similar areas are not abled to.
Discussing community issues through these discussions amplifies the voice of the child and informs policy makers and development agents to pay an ear and act accordingly.
OS: Your last words?
TM: Lastly I would like to say thank you so much Besana Mail for allowing me to give my thoughts on this platform. I hope they would touch some hearts. Keep up informing the child and empower the parent too. Taboka.
OS: Isu ndisu taboka kasa nechikati chenu
