Under the headline ‘Open Up for a Creative Society,’ Sweden@Rwanda sparks co-creation and collaboration between Swedish and Rwandan creative players to enhance the creative sector and broaden bilateral collaborations.
The creative sector holds the potential to be a key contributor to the Rwandan economy, creating jobs, enhancing business and opening up for a more creative society. These are among the key messages and discussion points when Sweden@Rwanda, a co-creation workshop between Rwanda and Sweden to enhance creative entrepreneurship and innovation, takes place in Kigali on September 24th and 25th.
The Swedish Institute and the Embassy of Sweden in Rwanda are behind the initiative and will bring together key players within the creative industries in Rwanda and Sweden to collaborate and inspire through presentations, panel discussions, working labs and creative inputs.
“Sweden and Rwanda are both small countries with small populations, and we share the ambition and desire to grow our creative industries to play a big role in the economy and contribute to job creation and exports. We wish to broaden the bilateral collaboration between Sweden and Rwanda and use this opportunity for creative stakeholders from both countries to learn and inspire from each other, form collaborations and take action towards building a strong creative economy”, says Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of Sweden in Rwanda, Maria Håkansson.
As the creative sector in Rwanda is growing in both size and recognition from government, private sector and international partners, the timing and content for the Sweden@Rwanda event is crucial, according to Eric Kabera, founder of Kwetu Film Institute and an active cultural activist:
“More and more people are realising that the creative economy has the potential of being a key element for both human and capital growth in Rwanda. We hope to bring awareness to the creative sector, engage private and public stakeholders and really move some agendas,” say Eric Kabera, who will be leading one of the working labs during the event.
The two-day workshop will host representatives from the creative sector, government stakeholders, private sector players, international partners and non-governmental organisations, and will focus on four main areas to boost the creative sector: Education, Cultural Mapping, Creative Communications and Cross- disciplinary Collaboration.
As an artistic add-on to the Sweden@Rwandan workshop, a free public concert featuring the Swedish artist Fatima in collaboration with Rwandan artists including Angel Umotoni, Eric 1Key and Iyadede will take place at Inema Arts Centre on Thursday September 24th from 7pm.
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