By Ireen Kayira

Blantyre Arts Festival (BAF) has hailed the International Cultural Marketing Workshop that was held over the weekend in Blantyre.

The workshop was launched in Lilongwe on November 14 to 15, 2020 and was expected to run in all regions.

In an interview with Malawi News Agency (Mana) in Lilongwe on Tuesday, Co-founder of BAF, Thomas Chibambo said it has been long overdue for artists to have such a platform.

“It was an eye opener as creative practitioners able to learn in depth of creative market, creativeskill, production management, creative content creations, and copy right issues among others,” he said.

Chibambo said through the workshop artists went deeper to learn critical matters such as sponsorship issues which focus on the requirements artist need to know before producing any creative production under the laws of Malawi.

He added that they have donated 70 books towards the project with support from the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa to be shared among creatives attending the workshops.

The Project Curator, Vincent Maluwa who is an alumnus of the international visitor Leadership Programme of the Department of State said the workshop has received an overwhelming feedback from the creatives across the country.

“There is evidently a growing demand from creatives across the country to attend the workshops,” he said.

“Those that missed the Lilongwe workshop travelled all the way to Blantyre to attend this workshop and it also attracted the attention of creatives from Zomba,” Maluwa said.

He expressed gratitude to the support the workshop has received from the creatives as well as from other key players in the industry towards the project.

“It is the wish of the project to be able to reach out to as many creatives as possible across the country,” Maluwa said.

The workshop is being supported by the United States Embassy in Malawi in partnership with small and medium enterprise development institute and Department of Arts and Malawi Censorship Board.