In a significant move to empower and connect African artistes with global opportunities, GetLit Africa has launched a revolutionary platform catering to talents across the continent.
Creative Director Olawale Oluwadahunsi, drawing from his extensive experience in journalism and the arts, spearheads this initiative, aiming to bridge the gap between African creatives and untapped opportunities worldwide.
The platform, accessible at www.getlitafrica.com, serves as a comprehensive resource for artistes in diverse fields, including writing, photography, poetry, visual arts and music. Oluwadahunsi, reflecting on his journalistic background, emphasised the abundance of undiscovered opportunities, citing his own experiences securing a fully-funded trip to South Africa through the Durban International Film Festival (DIFF).
GetLit Africa, operating as both a not-for-profit organisation and a business, plans to evolve over time by offering paid subscriptions for enhanced services. Oluwadahunsi envisions the platform not only as an opportunity showcase but also as a provider of essential training on applying for grants globally, a crucial aspect often overlooked by aspiring artistes.
The platform’s multilingual approach, available in English, French, Arabic, German, Spanish and Chinese, reflects its commitment to accessibility for artistes across the African continent.
GetLit Africa’s ambitions extend beyond opportunity aggregation, intending to provide guidance on navigating scholarships and grants. Oluwadahunsi said during a press briefing, “Unknown to many, people still travel to the USA on fully-paid scholarships, but one requires the right link and information to know how all these are processed. GetLit will be availing such services.”
According to him, “The decision to launch this stems from my personal experience. As a journalist with National Mirror newspaper, I was always searching for opportunities in the arts because I realised there were so many which people did not know about. With such opportunities, I was able to travel to South Africa on an all-expense paid trip by the Durban Film Festival as a film critic. Those were the rewards for the weekly articles I was doing as a film and art critic in the newspaper then. So there are several opportunities in writing, photography, poetry, visual arts and music. That is essentially what inspired GetLit Africa. It is an all-encompassing opportunities platform, targeting Africans in the arts, who are seeking bigger opportunities available worldwide”.
The team behind GetLit Africa comprises young Nigerian talents, including Isaac Idowu (Director), Oluwatosin Ajeigbe (Project Coordinator), Temitope Oke (Associate Project Coordinator), Olumide Oyekunle (Editor) and Abisola Amusan (Head of Marketing).
As the platform gains momentum, it aspires to be a catalyst for artistic growth, unlocking doors to opportunities that might have remained hidden to African creatives. Get ready to witness a surge in the global recognition of African artistic talents, thanks to the visionary efforts of GetLit Africa.
With multifaceted interests in arts, Olawale Oluwadahunsi, a biochemist by training, started writing poetry as a teenager and has steadily up-scaled his passion. He is the mastermind of Poetic Mines and Fingerprints, curators of photography charity exhibitions as well as Spoken Words competitions. In 2015, he participated at the Durban International Film Festival as ‘movie critic’, while in 2020 he was in New York as a delegate of the United Nations Summer Youth Assembly. Recently, he was selected as a delegate for the World Bank Youth Summit.
