Members of the Umbrella of Western Entertainers Sacco including artistes during the launch of Talent Review on Thursday at Generation Suits in Mbarara City PHOTO BY JULIUS BYAMUKAMA
Artistes in Western Uganda under the umbrella of the Western Entertainers Sacco Association have been advised to improve their saving and social communal skills if they want to progress in life.
During the launch of Talent Review on Thursday at Generation Suits in Mbarara City, the chairperson of Umbrella of Western Entertainers Sacco Association Mr Amos Taremwa said it is important for artistes including dancers, singers, writers, DJs, and media personalities to start up side incomes and save the little they work than them waiting for music show. He says once artists embrace it they will be able to get loans with no interest from their Sacco.
“Artistes need to change their mindsets and start-up side income ventures and be able to earn some money than them waiting for concerts, they also should develop saving skills to save the little they earn and our existing Sacco is ready to support them in any way because as a Sacco we thinking of organizing concerts for our members for them to able to earn and we shall be able to give artistes loans and they will have to pay from their concerts’ revenue,” Mr Taremwa said.
Mr Taremwa says that since the start of the association in 2012 which also became a Sacco has aimed at helping local artistes especially musicians to sing in their local language something that has been achieved.
“From the start, our main aim was to help artiste here sing in their local language Runyankole, artistes were singing in Luganda language and that was not good for our Ankole culture, while starting in 2012 it was hard but as of now every artiste here has embraced singing in Runyankole language, it is a great achievement.” He said
He thus advised artistes to always engage themselves in social communal activities to be part of fellow community members.
“I encourage artistes to be in association/Sacco like this because they get bonded with locals from their communities and it brings about cooperation, especially in time of a common need,” he added.
The Mbarara City Commercial Officer Mr Donati Mutahi asked artistes to stop the habit of using all the money they work and develop the habit of saving the little they get, as he urged them to live for a purpose and dreams to achieve by creating jobs for themselves as side incomes.
“Please artistes let us not rely on consuming the little we work let us instead save the little we make, our work in this town is important, people say it is to promote, trade, cooperative industries, and tourism, every artist here is a trader, your shops are your music and everyone needs to listen to music in their lives, once you leave here, make a definition of what you do and what you want to do soon,” Mr Mutahi said.
He added “I ask you to make your accounts active by saving the little you get from your sources of income, also be in a position of creating jobs than seeking for them and always embrace government programs for your developments from there all our dreams shall be achieved,”
Singer Rasta Charz says since the artists Sacco started they had plans of growing their work by buying studio machines and other machines to help musicians in performance shows but only a few have been achieved, he is hopeful of better results if artists are together as one.
“While stating this Sacco as artistes, we had a plan that once our Sacco grows we buy advanced studio machines and other better machines to help us during performance shows for instance we go to events and do video recording on our, we have only bought a camera and we are waiting for the rest,” Rasta Charz said.
He added “Joining associations is good for us as artistes because it brings us near our fans and local people, which is social capital, I encourage artistes to have in themselves a spirit of joining associations wherever they are.”
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