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The research was conducted to understand the Talent industry (recreation, culture and sports sector) in Uganda Kampala, it is focused on uncovering insights and findings an individual or organization that wants venture into talents can leverage on to design a user-centered project and help turn talents into careers.
Talent walls a social enterprise that provides a platform where youth talent is identified, nurtured and exposed as a career. In a bid to create a user-centered model, they partnered with Adiloits a business design firm to carry out the research and later design the model.
It aimed to find insights and create findings which will aid Adiloits team in creating a model and user-centered activities for Talent walls. A follow-up phase will focus on developing concepts and pilots of different products and services for the model
The recreation, culture and sports sector has been one of the self-grown sectors by participating individuals, it includes different aspects but our key focus for this research was performing arts and sports.
Performing arts (music, drama, poetry, and dance), sports (football, volleyball, netball, basketball, and wrestling) and Hands-on skills (craft making, fine art, and design, fashion design among others) are the common talents in Uganda especially in the city Kampala where our research was conducted.
This sector has been one that has had the least investment yet the participating individuals continue to hustle individually or in small community teams to turn their natural ability into careers and professions without so much success. Just a hand-full have been able to make it with the right tools and networks but these too still testify to years of sweat with no fruits until what they call “chance” gets into their way. They repeatedly tell us how they never imagined themselves that successful despite all the great work.
Understanding that the industry has been one of those that have made a significant posi- tive change for people especially the performers despite their backgrounds, there is no doubt it’s a niche for more explorations and this pushed us to get a deeper understanding of the situation on the ground. This will create opportunities for various stakeholders but most importantly create grounds upon which existing talents can be discovered and exposed for growth and proper exploitation.
Making this imagination a reality included an engagement with the talented people, groups and various levels professionals to unleash existing means, opportunities and dreams such that we can create a user-centered product that everyone in the industry can reason and work with.
Even though the sector is more for individuals with special natural abilities they still need specific tools, knowledge, and improvements to grow into something from which these individuals can make careers and a living.
However, with the so many years of hard work, practice, and sacrifice, only a handful have been able to realize the dreams they envisioned back when they embarked on such jour- neys. With just a few making progress, the aspiring ones have been torn down by the wrong perceptions of the status quo that such journey is for the unsuccessful or “failed at the so-called professional life or vocations” while others have witnessed their idols lose the game and thus find no hope to continue.
With all these setbacks many young people have been seen failing to pursue and give up on their unique potentials yet if well-natured would create them into the icons and stars of this generation and write history for those to come.
From the survey conducted, despite the challenges of the industry 6/10 in the talent industry would recommend a friend to pursue as a career.
According to the daily monitor Tuesday, May 29, 2018, as the article on “Entertainment can be an alternative investment” while looking at what should be invested into to improve the economic status of Uganda, the article shows how the entertainment industry is a better alternative especially for youth compared to other sectors. The article argues that “Therefore, it is important that we discuss other opportunities that government could harness to spur growth to achieve middle-income status although, according to current projections and growth rates, the target looks out of reach unless there is a radical shift to focus on other alternative investments.
The government seems to be set on investing in agriculture through Operation Wealth Creation although it is heavily flawed with several challenges which defeat the purpose of wealth creation. It’s no wonder that growth in agricultural output slowed to 1.3 percent compared to 2.8 percent the previous year.Based on these other investment vehicles such as arts and entertainment would be a worthy consideration. Uganda’s population has over the last 30 years evolved and shares a different philosophy from its parents with some youth caring less about what happens with farming. This can be proved by how youth have willingly sold their parents’ farmland to buy boda-bodas, a largely short term investment vehicle. However, in the last 17 years, the industry has seen some good growth and creat- ed role models to that have inspired youth, together with data in the last five years from the Uganda Performing Rights Society, suggests steady growth both in quality and turnover. Available data also indicates that the industry has been posting substantial growth since 2011 peaking in 2015. For instance, in 2011 the industry posted growth of Shs90m before growing by more than 400 percent to post Shs500m in 2015.
The growth, which might be more than the numbers above, was registered in a sector that is largely informal and unregulated. Local music streaming and download sites such as Howwe.biz that lists more than 1,000 artists music on average have 244,000 songs down- loaded every day but no revenue is remitted to music owners such as Sheebah, Fik Famei- ca, Da Agent and Vinka, among others, who have released hit lists in the last two years.
The above are indicators of the prospects and potential of the industry if it were regulated and streamlined with the right regulatory framework and enforcement of copyright and taxation.
Increased finance to enforcement through Performing Rights Society must be consolidated to benefit local talent and protect their copyrights and intellectual properties.
An Insight is a statement of truth, based on observations we’ve made, things we’ve experi- enced and the conversations we’ve had. Our observations have been presented in terms of facts about the common talents, challenges and the already existing organizations and plat- forms.
The commonly practiced and professionalized talents in the central Kampala as per our study were:
The talents have flourished due to the nature of the population whose people enjoy lots of entertainment which have encouraged the young people to master their talents so they can show it off to earn a living.
The nurturing has been mostly successful due to individual and commitment in small teams. These have been successful at community and homestead setting. Those that have made it beyond their community level to country level and beyond are those that have got an oppor- tunity to have exposure to networks that can invest and professionalize such talent. These are just a handful of the total above-mentioned percentage.
The talents have flourished due to the nature of the population whose people enjoy lots of entertainment which have encouraged the young people to master their talents so they can show it off to earn a living.
The nurturing has been mostly successful due to individual and commitment in small teams. These have been successful at community and homestead setting. Those that have made it beyond their community level to country level and beyond are those that have got an oppor- tunity to have exposure to networks that can invest and professionalize such talent. These are just a handful of the total above-mentioned percentage.
The misconception of talent as an impossible career is a serious stereotype; deciding to take on talent solely as a career or profession is not dearly welcomed in the communities we visited. The status-quo discourages and kills the attempt to nature such talent. This setting continues to kill even the unleashed or unborn talents pushing youths to quit their talent so as not to be misfits in our society.
In addition to the stereotyping, talent pursing does not pay off as much in the country. According to our study, 71% of those who take on talents as their careers are still struggling to put food on the table for their families. This makes it hard for any youth to solely consider taking on their talent as a career as it’s not earning them enough to sustain life.
In every small community, there is one struggling talent support group, center or individual. We came across organizations like Edgar Watson youth football academy, Swangz, Lantern meet, Kitara, In Movement Kansanga, Talent Africa, Equator Sports Academy, Girl Power ministry and Watoto children’s ministry. There are 2-6 talented retired talented individuals in each community we visited and these have dominance and command to gather masses of talented youths.
The existing ones have challenges related with the scarcity of the rightful resources and tools which not only kill the morale of the trainees but also fails them to exploit their maximum potential and be ready for world exposure and competition.
There are inconsistency and lack of organizational purpose and vision among most talent building centers and individuals we encountered as they do it for daily survival.
The 12% who have made their talents a career and earning from it has monopolized the system. From events, football clubs, radio, TV and other performing arts platforms having the same people dominating every new opportunity that comes up. This leaves the new entrants in the industry being denied any chances to thrive as with the former’s dominance creates entry barriers such as costs that cannot be affordable upcoming performers.
Over 96% of our participants gave evidence that they live below a dollar per day, this level of poverty and survivorship can’t allow them to plan and envision issues beyond daily expenditures for basics. To encounter these never-ending unsatisfied needs, up to 99% of these find an unreliable side hustle from which they can milk a few scents to face another day thus can never fully commit to growing as required for one to be an icon in the industry.
People taking on talents and how they survival (based on 20 groups of 10 people)
A goal without a plan is merely a dream, these talented people have had chances to be trained and groomed especially in community and individual levels. The challenge is they have no idea what will become of them after so many years of practice. In most cases there is no platform or resourceful networks that intend to expose these talents to the right audience market, forcing teams and individuals and teams fear to invest their best in nurturing what they see no future talent in.
Findings enlighten us about the opportunities which are starting points of something new and important.
How might we use social media as a tool to promote and income generating avenue?
From 2009 to now we have seen the rise of social media platforms and the impact they have had in our lives especially marketing which has also been the case with the talent industry. Social media platforms have brought freedom of expression to a large audience. According to a recent study conducted by The Strategic Counsel, people with an interest in arts and culture reported that social media has:
This is evident that once the right talents are nurtured with the necessary resources and commitment, the market and channels through which to expose and channel the products to the audience are readily available
Building community centers that welcome a collection of ideas and talents with long term thinking leadership.
Organization or community has to be infusing collective ideas to foster collective learning whilst standing on self-worthy and dignity values igniting the culture of serving. They have to build a culture that makes talented youth have a sense belonging to space.
To create this kind of space calls for a passionate visionary leader who will not only look at the vision of the organization but also see the future of the talented youth and what they can achieve. The organization has to be running on a sustainable model and creating experiences that enable youth to make talent their career
Even though there are community centers which give youths a platform to nurture talents, there is still a gap in promoting these talents and there is a need to fill that gap. The promo- tion and management platform has to be grounded to pick out talent from unprivileged com- munities, nurture and manage them while showcasing them to the world. Creating networks and platforms that are known and practically possible will not just encourage talent growth but create opportunities and exposure for the already available underutilized talent.
There are many organization today trying to help the youths grow to either being entrepreneurs or learn a skill about a job. For any organization that would love Create programs and activities that promote talents, they can leverage these existing platforms and offer services rather than reinventing the wheel. It would focus more on showcasing talents and creating income-generating activities for them.
How might we leverage talent i.e. performances to teach or educate about most complex topics in learning institutions and communities?
Our interviews with over 50 youths in schools and talent building centers show that 78% of youths can easily learn most complex topics through visual and hands-on learning. This is an opportunity to customize content through talent performances to teach anything complex in schools and communities.
With talents cutting barriers like religion, political, tribe, literacy it can be used as a tool to sensitize and communicate to masses.
How might we motivate, guide and push talented youths to be accountable for their actions and taking responsibility for their lives?
People pursing talents as careers 7/10 are stereotyped as being immoral, undisciplined and not focused. To break this stereotype the organizations building talents have to instill these values among youths as activities of their programs.
They have to create models that measure resources spent on each in a lean approach which is being accountable for support to being given or each invest in you (talented youth) should show results at each step of the program.
Babaluku uses a theory of “Show me your drive and I will show you the way” which he uses to push the talented youth in being accountable.
From the research, it’s obvious that talents are available among the privileged and unprivileged youth and more likely the challenges are the same despite one’s background that is, the stereotypes, sustainability, and resources. Thus, it’s a niche for investors and concerned stakeholders to identify better ways to make the sector more resourceful for the participants.
The identified challenges hindering the envisioned excellence have possible solutions that are also workable as identified among the findings and will further be provided with a viable model and lean investment methodologies. Hence a collective inclusion of the suggested findings and model will not just enable the success of talent walls but as well empower the sector for more economic benefits.
The research will also contribute strongly to designing customer-centric products for the participants. Customer-centric offer will not be simply a benefit to the talent walls by attracting and exploring extraordinary performers, but create a clear vision of how they make talent a career with pride. This will change the negative stereotypes towards talents and encourages young people to create employment from their natural abilities. This to an extent cuts down the cries of unemployment in this country.
By leveraging on existing platforms, more talent yet unprivileged youths can be impacted and enabled with what they are best at; this directly empowers them to sustain lives while improving the economic status of the nation
We are a social enterprise that provides a platform where youth talent is identified, natured and exposed as a career.
Enable talents grow into careers
We strive to engage, educate and motivate young people to exploit their natural abilities (talents) to combat unemployment.
The research was conducted by Adi-loits (www.adiloits.com) and funded by Talent walls (www.talentwalls.com).
Special thanks to Silas Babaluku, Gilbert Bwette ,talent community centers, artists, athletes’ and anyone who participated in the research for your valued input and direction.
Plot 37a, Luthuli Avenue, Bugolobi,
P.O. Box 34603 Kampala – Uganda.