By Edward Kuyipa
The Zimbabwe Artists Trust is appealing for hampers for its more than 300 members who have been drastically affected by the COVID-19 lockdown since its introduction on 30 March 2020.
With no live shows for musicians, who were used to serenading revellers at nightspots, or entertaining congregants at Churches, or wedding guests; with opportunities to captivate the attention of people at pubs, parties or weddings gone for dancers; with the moviemakers camera lense gathering dust; with the art galleries attendances nonexistent the artist has sunk into the quagmire of penury.
The Zimbabwe Artist Trust’s founder Ms. Karen Madake aka Mai Jojo, observed that “The average artist’s bread bin does not even have a crumb. The refrigerator has borehole water and a few vegetable leaves. He or she and the family have become involuntary vegetarians.
Shepherd Chinyani, a Trustee and the music industry’s doyen said, “We would be grateful to have assistance in the form of foodstuffs, soap, detergents, and other basics, so that artists may survive during their darkest hour.”
Allan Chimbetu and Josphat Somanje, who are also Trustees called upon the corporate world to rise to the occasion and provide the much-needed assistance to a strategic community that has become very vulnerable.
It has been like the Zimbabwean Artist is “By the rivers of Babylon, where we hung our harps, yea we wept.” (Psalms 137)