Kojo Preko Dankwa’s Open Letter To Creative Arts Council

I am happy the Creative Arts sector in Ghana is growing though critical issues are affecting the industry.  This I know will go along way to help eradicate some wrong doings/perceptions within and around the sector.

There is this saying that  “if you do the same thing at the same time and expect different results “obviously it will not work. There is another saying that  ” if the expert says it cannot be done ..change him “.

With all these, I was happy when I first saw a press statement coming from the Ministry of Tourism Arts and Culture talking about Creative Workshops instituted. The workshop which seeks to educate and share ideas amongst the creative art people came to me as wonderful news.  

Lo and behold the first of its kind within the creative sector was held last Tuesday. Attending the first workshop by the Creative Arts Council which touched on Digitization (monetizing and marketing creatives online) brought to the table experts to speak on online streaming, YouTube uploading etc. 

The experts explained how the art people can capitalise on technology to close the gap currently facing the creative art industry .with regards to Revenue generation.

I believe that being first of its kind in Ghana, it is a good initiative to help stakeholders in the arts industry to learn some few tricks of the trade and built upon it.

MY OBSERVATIONS:

POOR ATTENDANCE: One of the most difficult exercise to perform with  Creative Arts is the ability to attend programmes that will benefit them and shape their professional world. I can enumerate a number of programmes to compliment my case . If this attitude doesn’t stop, I can say without fear or favour that things will be tough for us in the industry. We should be up and doing.

UPLIFT THE WORKSHOP: Though the resource person was good in his area of jurisdiction, I felt the programme lacked one major thing, and that was POWERPOINT PRESENTATION.

The resource person seriously stood on his feet to educate industry players about the need to embrace digitization but nothing to present to the few who came to enjoy, learn and take home some information.

I  believe organisers (Creative Arts Council) should do well to bridge the gap by making the workshop more professional.  What I will add is a soft copy of every workshop presentation should be emailed to participants to help them continue the education.

I was again surprised that Creative Arts Council which organised the workshop on Digitization were unable to stream live on their social media pages to help those who could not attend to also catch up.

The artwork for the workshop had no social media handles of the Creative Arts Council for people, to follow or like.

I have always made my views known concerning the nature in which Creative Arts Council is being run especially the move to have workshops done for the creative arts to learn and catch up very fast. I fully support this initiative.

I plead with the Creative Art Council to do everything possible in their stead through constant lobbying for parliament to finally give the green light to the Act.

We should also not lose sight of the fact that we are all in this together to make our creative arts sector a good one and prove to policymakers that we are viable and in terms of  contributing to the GDP of this country we should be counted.

Kojo Preko Dankwa

Kasapa fm/starr fm Entertainment

Focap converner

Kojopreko@gmail.com.