Young Female Artists Contributed to Addressing Social Issues Through Music and Civic Engagement
Arts and music are essential to a strong state economy and for wellbeing. Not only does it create employment, generate local income, and attract investment, it can highlight the issues for the livelihoods of a community or a country. While the importance of the creative sector is significant, there are struggles and ambitious youngsters can find it hard to fit in or build long-term careers in the cultural and creative industries.
Theary pitched the music video concept to metors and judges.
On the graduation day, Theary demonstrated her colloboration song to the mass live audiences with music video in the background.
A recent report by The Sound Initiative, “Future of Creativity: The State of Play” draws the attention to the six challenges ranging from the access to spaces for training, law enforcement, lack of social security, unstable income, lack funding, value of the work and arts formal education.
A long-standing WE Act partner, The Sound Initiative, implemented a Women’s Amplified Voices project (.WAV) to train young women to raise awareness on issues facing youth and young women creative entrepreneurs, produce engaging content, and leverage relevant media platforms to amplify their voices and messages to policymakers.
.WAV project provided training and mentoring to young women artists specifically in the technical field of music, music entrepreneurship, and in addition, connected the young artists to relevant government representatives and policymakers in a forum, to create an opportunity to voice their concerns and recommendations to the challenges they are facing as women artists.
Ty Sokun Theary,19, is university student and a .WAV student. Theary is one among 12 young female artists selected through audition. During the program, she joined 12 hands-on workshops on hard and soft skills necessary for her music career such as creating a music identity, professionalism, marketing, the socioeconomic rights, and other skills related to producing music.
With a teammate, Theary developed and pitched her music video concept and saw her idea come to life through the creation of a music video. “It was a joyful and exciting opportunity as all the talented students from TSI were able to express their creative interests. With this opportunity, we’ll try to make a positive impact on the society all together. I’m standing here as a person, and an artist to speak up for the misunderstanding our society has about artists; to encourage young people to feel more comfortable about themselves. I’m feeling like I’m making a path that will make it easier for young people to pursue a life in music in a society that has stigmatization on those fields of work.” she added.
Ry Rangsey, 25, is a rapper and songwriter and a student of .WAV. With the practical civic engagement and socioeconomic rights knowledge, she got from the training, she was given a chance to join a panel discussion in the forum with other young female artists entrepreneurs to discuss the positive impact creative youth can have on communities and she raised her concerns to the government representative. She talked about the need for social security and law enforcement of copyright that artist should be entitled to. The subject of social security is so new that most artists have not even thought about, nor have they heard about it, but it would make a big difference in their ability to continue in their career and continue to raise awareness around issues and have positive impact on their communities.
“When you are a freelancer or independent artist, it’s not clear where we can go to be registered to have insurance. As an entrepreneur and an artist, I want to know where I can go for getting help.”, Rangsey mentioned in a recent panel discussion with Secretary of State at Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation.
Rangsey joined as a penalist in the recent panel dicussion with represenative of Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation
