The British Council held a creative enterprise workshop for 20 hand craft artists at the Rashid Diab centre, Khartoum. The workshop brought together participants from different states of Sudan to enable them expand their business to new markets through networking. The artists were trained on how to sustain business and make long term financial plans. The workshop also focused on linking these artists with similar skills to work collaboratively.
Fulfilling our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion commitment (we call it simply EDI) 60 per cent of the participants were females and 15 per cent were persons with disability (with the necessary assistance provided) and all from different age groups, with the majority being between 18 – 35 years old.
The participants were also linked with ‘M3roud Team’ which is an mobile application that has an international commerce platform which allows you to showcase your work online and sell it. This new move to the virtual world will allow these artists to access new markets and get a wider exposure for their talents. At the end of the workshop M3roud awarded high performing participants with monetary gifts, in addition to buying stocks from them to be sold on the M3roud platform.
Another hand craft initiative called Rakesya, run by a young female artist called Mehiera whom we previously featured her story in our channels - read Mehiera's story here - has granted 10 participants training opportunities and working space at their premises for a year to develop their skills and get access to equipment for free. They also offered jobs to some including participants with disability.
The British Council is now prioritising a strong focus on developing the creative industries sector in Sudan linking with social entrepreneurship to establish the perception of income generating arts and equipping artists with the needed skills to do it.