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Culture Fund Moves Premises

Please be advised that the Culture Fund has moved into its NEW AND PERMANENT OFFICES at No.51 HARVEY BROWN, Milton Park, Harare, Zimbabwe.

Board Chairman's Speech for 2008 Grants

Culture Fund Board Awards
Over 3.8 Quadrillion Dollars to over 125 Projects

Speech by Luxon Zembe, Chairman of the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust Board of Trustees on the occasion of the official announcement of 2008 Grants held on Monday 20 June 2008 3pm at the Culture Fund Offices, Eastlea, Harare, Zimbabwe.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture
Representatives of the Swedish Embassy and Sida
Directors of the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe
Directors of Arts and Culture institutions here present
Fellow Culture Fund Board Members
Executive Director of the Culture Fund, Farai Mpfunya
Culture Fund Sub-Sector Committees Chairpersons
Distinguished Guests and Culture Practitioners
Members of the Media
Ladies and Gentlemen

Good afternoon and welcome to the Culture Fund of Zimbabwe Trust and to the 2nd round of grants allocation. Before we start, may I invite you to take a moment of silence for our late board member, Godwin Kaduma whose wisdom in the matters we are gathered here for will be missed?.....Thank you.

I also take this opportunity to officially announce that another wise African, Arts and Culture practitioner, Malawian Serman Chavula, is now part of our board.

The Culture Fund envisions a dynamic, diversified and sustainable culture sector imbued with Zimbabwean values and identity, which contributes towards wealth creation. This is achieved through contributions to the growth of the culture sector in Zimbabwe by providing finance and technical support to cultural practitioners, institutions and activities.

Mbira's Greatest: Simon Mashoko, A Remarkable Man

A Remarkable Man
SMG 192... to 2007?

Simon Mashoko is a remarkable Zimbabwean and remarkable mbira maker and mbira artist for many reasons. First and foremost, Simon is remarkable because he achieved a feat that few Zimbabweans, if any, ever get to achieve in this day and age. He lived into his nineties. For that feat alone, he should have been documented, recorded and archived by every Zimbabwean historian, archivist, anthropologist, musicologist and all others who are interested in glimpses and impressions of what has happened in Zimbabwe in the last nine decades.

Simon is also remarkable in the sense that right up to his death, he was still the main breadwinner to his large family of wife, children, grandchildren and great grand children. Really remarkable for a man who wasn't formally educated, had no college education and lived in a small rural hamlet in a country currently experiencing one of the highest unemployment levels in the world.

SMG, or "SMG Chikakara che Dhara", as he sometimes signed his letters when he wrote, was also special for another reason, he was a great artist driven by a passion for his work. He worked, lived and breathed mbira. His approach to art, like that of Thomas Wadharwa, Gora was contemporary. Mbira was something you lived, breathed, enjoyed and worked at in the hear and now.