Meet Lily Kudzro; The Lady Who Is Bringing Out The Creative Side of Ghanaian Children.

Lily Kudzro is a clear example of how to use creativity to deal with obstacles.

When financial difficulty forced her to drop out of university in 2009, she refused to sit down and watch her world come to an end. Rather, she used her natural creative skills to provide for herself.

Over the next three years, this determined young lady survived by taking the jobs she could find. Interestingly, without a university certificate, she managed to land some meaningful and highly paid jobs with just her creative abilities. “I even served as the Program Director for Mentoring Women Ghana, a program partner of the Vital Voices and Global Sachs Initiative” she says proudly.

That last job inspired her to later study Women and Human Rights Law so she could pursue her passion for global issues affecting women and children.

Work with Children
Two years ago, the China Africa Report published an article which contained this quote “The clash between modernization and traditions has affected the creative thinking of African children.”

When Lily saw that article, something moved inside her. Around the same time, she looked back and noticed how poetry had changed her life. That was when she decided to do something for the creative arts.

What she did was to start the first children’s art centre in Ghana -The Devio Arts Centre. This centre was built to use creative and innovative methods to develop lifelong creative skills in children.

Achievements
Devio Arts has chalked several achievements in its young existence. They have organized key events like the Children’s Art Festival and the International Child Art’s Foundation’s Global Art Competition, which reached over 2000 children and enjoyed high media visibility. They have collaborated with big names like Tigo, US Embassy, Alliance Francaise, and iSpace.

On the personal front, Lily was adjudged the winner of the Ghana StartupCup2014, a yearly competition organized by Dream Pathway International and sponsored by the US Embassy. According to Lily, participating in the Ghana Startup Cup competition was a good career experience. “The processes and mentoring sessions all have contributed a lot to our work at Devio Arts Centre. Apart from the recognition and skills acquired, I have also become more dedicated to my role as a social entrepreneur” she testifies.

Emmanuel Nyame, the organizer of the GhanaStartup cup praised her saying “Lily demonstrated the highest impact with her line of business, which impressed the judges, hence giving her a better score than her colleagues. Lily is an inspiration to the Startup community.”

Lily was also named in the 2015 Newaccra Achievers List ; 30 Ghanaians About to Shake The World.

Challenges
Lily’s rise has not been all rosy. One of the biggest challenges she faces in her work comes from the setup of our educational system in Ghana. As things stand, our educational system does not make room for children to explore and realize their artistic potential.

Art education is not recognized as a national priority and no extra time is allocated in our school timetables for the creative arts. In short ‘Our educational system in Ghana undervalues the importance of arts education’ she laments.

But in spite of these and other challenges, Lily and her team continue to take action and she encourages up and coming entrepreneurs to do same.

“My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is ,no matter how limited you are, don’t waste your life dreaming of ideas, rather, put your ideas to work and you will find support along the way.’’

The Future
This year, DevioArts will be hosting the annual Slow Arts Day event in Ghana on the theme “Empathy through Arts”. This event will bring together mainstream children and children with special needs and physical capabilities, their families, and schools in an encouraging, positive, and inclusively progressive environment. There will be various art activities, discussions, and special guest speakers coming together to make it an exciting and educative time.

There are opportunities for organizations to support Devio Arts. Please contact them on 0543916002 or on Facebook.com/devioartscentre.

AUTHOR
Newaccra Magazine is the leading success and personal development magazine. For more, <a target='blank' href=' http://newaccra.com/ '>visit Newaccra.com </a></p>