Arterial Network's African Women In Cultural Leadership - Arterial Network

Arterial Network has partnered with the Creatives Garage (www.creativesgarage.org ) of Kenya to pilot the African Women in Cultural Leadership (AWCL) mentorship project.  With seed funding support from Africalia, the call out for participating mentees will be published in March 2016.

In a sector usually characterized by strong participation from women, women’s career progression often stalls before ascending to senior management and leadership levels in the Arts. The African Women in Cultural Leadership (AWCL) programme aims to identify and address the structural, economic, social and cultural barriers that discourage women from taking up leadership positions within Africa’s cultural industry.

In March 2015, the East African AWCL Symposium in Nairobi gathered 17 participants from 8 countries to debate the issues and the potential future of an AWCL programme. It was agreed that a mentorship programme “by women, for women” should be the initial approach to address the specific needs of women in the arts sector and to convert opportunities into viable career trajectories.

In developing this programme, Arterial Network takes as its point of departure a notion espoused by many leading development experts, that ‘Leadership is a choice’, that a leader must show and inspire others to do with a unique vision and an efficient plan for the future. In order to contribute in the making of women cultural leaders for tomorrow, AWCL considers that a certain set of skills that defines “good leadership” must be addressed in all its activities. The methodology is still at a developmental stage and shall grow considerably after the first pilot year in 2016.

The aims of the programme are to:

• Identify the structural, economic, social and cultural barriers that discourage women from taking up leadership positions within Africa’s cultural industry through data collection, seminars and research.
• Partner with or support organizations and projects that address the structural, economic, social and cultural barriers that discourage women from taking up leadership positions within Africa’s cultural industry.
• Develop a mentorship programme that enables mentees to acquire a set of leadership skills as well as to achieve personal and professional goals that prepare them to take on leadership positions in an immediate or near future.
• Facilitate networking amongst women in the arts sector and create platforms for them to share knowledge, opportunities and experience as well as to provide support for each other.
• Undertake advocacy campaigns for an empowered role of women in the arts sector; this includes campaigning for arts/cultural organizations to adopt a code of gender equality.
• Support women of the Arts Sector in their journey to leadership by sharing and creating leadership opportunities or platforms – this includes profiling and promoting African women cultural leaders.

In this spirit, a conversation with women in the arts on the “Challenges faced by Women in the Arts & Culture Sector” will be held in Cape Town on the 9th of March in collaboration with Arterial Network South Africa as part of the series of events taking place across the continent celebrating the 9th anniversary of Arterial Network.