The Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) re-launches its newsletter

It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the revamped Kha Ri Ambe internal magazine, marking a turning point in our efforts to not only make stakeholders aware of the work of the Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) but to encourage information sharing and the exchange of ideas towards citizen participation. Minister Paul Mashatile.

Sandile Memela, in the Chief Editors Note, “Turning on the lights at DAC”, comments that, ‘For far too long, the Department of Arts and Culture has been like a man winking at a woman in the dark: the man knows what he’s doing, but the woman does not.Officials in the DAC, like many others in government, have been plagued by a communication crisis where they know what they are doing, but no one else does. Yet there has never been a time in the history of this country when so much has been done for the greater majority with so little.”

In The New Golden Path - Minister wants staff to interact the Minister outlines a new vision for the way in which DAC functions, saying “The old culture of working in ‘silos’ has to be changed as it undermines team spirit and enterprise-wide cooperation. It creates fragmentation which results in rivalry, duplication and competition. We need a new DAC where officials from all branches and units are familiar with the strategic objectives of the Department and see themselves as the agents of what the organization wants to achieve. For this to happen, we need a platform to share information so that the right hand will know what the left hand is doing.”

Several other articles follow this line, exhorting DAC staff and associated institutions to work together to achieve a new vision for the DAC. Other articles in this issue introduce key officials and turn the spotlight on current activities and events.

We congratulate DAC on this initiative and wish them well in their endevaour. We, like other stakeholders in the sector are always keen to know what’s going on at DAC and what their thinking is on the issues that concern us all!

Read the March edition of Kha Re Ambe and keep an eye open for future editions on the DAC website.

Leave a comment