By Onny Gangata
AWARD winning artist, Mbizo Chirasha is using art to raise awareness amongst the youths on the significance of keeping identity and black consciousness.
An accomplished poet and writer, Chirasha, has been at the forefront of organising poetry competitions in his home town of Gweru, with the hope of promoting ‘a conscious’ generation of upcoming writers and poets.
As part of celebrating the Black history month, Chirasha coordinated a poetry competition that featured learners from two high schools from Mkoba suburb held at the Gweru memorial library on Thursday.
The programme was funded by the American Embassy, American corner and Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA).
“Black history month is a program that was started by black Americans and adopted by countries where there is an American Embassy, so that they recognize all the blacks that were incarcerated and enslaved, segregated and subjected to discrimination,” Chirasha told The Echo.
“This year we decided to celebrate the African month through art and poetry being the main activity.”
Madhlenkosi Sibanda of Mkoba 3 High school was the overall winner while Romeo Matshayisimbi and Theodore Dhiwa both from Mkoba 1 High school came second and third respectively.
Chirasha added that the idea of having budding artists at this year’s edition was to educate the young ones of their history.
“We want to make sure that we have the next generation of writers who are conscious of black identity, black consciousness,” Chirasha said.
“We are saying young artists must be cultivated so that their talents can develop, also to help keep them off drugs and other social ills.”
Veteran journalist, Francis Bingadadi, who was one of the judges urged the young poets to maintain their originality in order to be successful.
“All the artists who performed exhibited good writing and poetry skills, however, learning must never cease. I encourage you to be original, learn from experienced poets in the country so that you can grow as artists and learn how t standardize your works to make yourself marketable,” he said.
