FEMALE entreprenuers in the creative industry have asked the government and other stakeholders to help save the sector from the influx of cheap foreign products that could collapse the local industry.
They said despite the industry being a source of revenue and job creation to the country, the lack of attention by the government to the creative industry could dampen the interest of the local artisans and potentially kill the industry’s prospects for the economy.
The female entrepreneurs made the appeal at an exhibition in Accra, which was dubbed “Open Art Therapy”.
The event brough together female glass sculptors, painters, environmental bag designers, photographers, paper artists, bead designers and textile designers working in the country.
The Women Arts Institute, Africa (Wai) on the occasion of the International Women’s Day created the platform for female entrepreneurs in the creative industry to showcase their handiworks.
The Co-ordinator of Wai, Akwele Suma Glory told the Daily Graphic that female artists in particular, had been marginalised and so Wai saw it necessary to create space for them to express themselves and register their presence.
“Granted it’s a male dominated sector and so we are trying hard because the economic market is not there. Internationally, we compete with a whole lot but sparingly we breakthrough,”
An exhibitor, Mrs Adwoa Ammah-Tagoe said she was into fine arts on part time basis because the industry currently was not lucrative. She has the hope of doing full time someday in order to create jobs particularly for the female youth.
However, she called on the Ministry of Chieftaincy and Culture to include arts into its cultural activities to boost the industry.
She said the art industry in Ghana was still at a developmental stage since people thought of other necessities of life before considering arts.
She told the Daily Graphic that it wass about time Ghanaians showed appreciation to the creative industry and what it offered. “Unfortunately artists get recognition when they die. At that time they are not around and cannot enjoy the proceeds from their works”.
Adwoa said she studied textiles at the university but was into arts because she was gifted. She said she had her first exhibition in 2003 at the Novotel Hotel in Accra and has held collections in Germany, Denmark and US.
Ms Everlove Tetteh has been in the creative industry for the past 15 years. She is into bead jewellery, foot wears designed with beads, textile and millinery. Although she has secured local and foreign markets she corroborated that access to market and funding remain a challenge .
She added that if she could have access to loan she could employ more people, thereby helping them to make a living.
A Gender and Development expert Mrs Marian Tackie commended the organizers of the exhibition and described it an illustration of what the Ghanaian female is capable of; creative, artistic and put a lot of detail in whatever they do.
She is of the hope that when females in the creative industry are given the financial and technical support they can in turn train other females to make a living.
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