Yocaf winners for Walter Muparutsa mentorship award
By Own Correspondent
ORGANISERS of the annual Youth Cultural Arts Festival (Yocaf) say this year’s edition of the fete would mainly focus on theatre with the winning school set to be awarded the Walter Muparutsa mentorship award.
In an interview with Showbiz, Yocaf director Leeroy Gono said preparations for the annual festival set for Masvingo in September have gathered momentum with preliminary competitions already underway.
“The festival seeks to give youths a platform to showcase their talent in theatre, poetry, dance and music, however this year the main focus will be on theatre with the winning school set to be awarded the Walter Muparutsa mentorship award,” said Gono.
“Since we are concentrating on theatre, schools are given a theme to compete in drama and they qualify for the main festival.”
Gono said this year’s edition of the festival would see six provinces namely Masvingo, Bulawayo, Harare, Midlands, Manicaland and Mashonaland Central participating.
He said Victoria High School from Masvingo have already won the preliminaries and would be representing the province at the finals.
A Lower Six student at the school Miccurrie Hudube said: “We will be staging a play which will bring out the theme of the festival Untold Stories – Breaking the Silence and we are optimistic our school will win the finals.”
Yocaf is a youth initiative aimed at promoting culture and enhancing the development of communities through objective use of arts and culture by nurturing professionalism.
It was founded in Masvingo Province in 2011 and started off as a provincial festival before incorporating other provinces.
