Terra Arts Academy Celebrates Creative Transformations at Graduation  Ceremony

Ferdinand Ekechukwu

The Terra Academy for The Arts (TAFTA) held its annual graduation ceremony yesterday in Lagos.

The Academy, in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, graduated over 8,000 students at the colourful event, which marked the third Graduating Ceremony of the institution.

With the theme “Celebrating Creative Transformation,” the ceremony highlights the significant artistic growth of TAFTA’s students.

The students spanned TAFTA centres in Lagos, Ogun, and Kano States. The cohorts of students beamed with smiles for the remarkable feat achieved reflecting commitment, dedication, passion and hard work.

As a social transformation project conceived by Bolanle Austen-Peters in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, TAFTA addresses critical expertise gaps and gender imbalances in Nigeria’s creative sectors, particularly in technical areas like stage lighting, sound design, and animation, where young women are now excelling.

Notably, TAFTA’s impactful programmes have up-skilled and empowered more than 30,000 young people through technical training, practical workshops, mentorship, business registration and enterprise support, with an impressive 19,000 securing employment, gigs, and other opportunities within the creative industry so far.

The graduation ceremony featured a procession, a keynote address by Ms. Rosy Fynn, Country Director of the Mastercard Foundation in Nigeria, social media content, award of certificates, among others.

She noted that “at the Mastercard Foundations we can have great ideas and great dreams. But it takes an amazing partner to bring that to life and that’s what TAFTA has done with us under the leadership of Austen-Peters. And to the graduating class of 2025 and to celebrate your talent today and also your transformation, you know the theme of this graduation is perfect.

“It resonates deeply with me and as I look around this room filled with emerging scriptwriters, filmmakers, animators, sound designers, stage managers and so much more, I see not just individuals with talents but young people who can make real significant change.” A notable figure in the industry Bimbo Manuel offered to mentor the participants.

One of the participants, Adepegba Emmanuel, was full of joy in sharing her experience: “TAFTA truly transformed my understanding of the creative industry and my writing career. The programme equipped me with practical skills, boosted my confidence, and connected me with a valuable network, directly leading to my first content writing role.”

The young and emerging creatives, having undergone the rigorous training from theory to practical, and acquired the skillset to enable scriptwriting, sound design, stage lighting, animation, art business, entrepreneurship, join the creative industry through this initiative and are believed will make positive impact.

“TAFTA, born from the legacy of Terra Kulture, is a social transformation project committed to upskilling young creatives in vital technical fields and fostering gender equality,” an excited Austen-Peters announced at the ceremony.

“Today’s graduation celebrates the remarkable journey of our students, adding to the over 30,000 individuals we have trained, with more than 19,000 recorded to have secured work so far. We are particularly proud of the growing number of talented female stage lighting, sound design, and animation artists emerging from our programs. We invite corporations to join us in recognising their transformation and the broader impact of TAFTA,” she added.

Austen-Peters reaffirmed the vision and mission of the academy and the purpose of its establishment, which was in accordance with the mission of the academy’s partners, The Mastercard Foundation. She acknowledged the dedication of the Terra Academy TAFTA team.

Austen-Peters said, “And most importantly, to our remarkable graduates, today we celebrate more than a graduation. We celebrate vision, we celebrate resilience, we celebrate creativity and most importantly we celebrate the power of opportunity. The persons that have graduated from TAFTA are all privileged because of Mastercard Foundation’s opportunity they provide for each and every one of you -free education.”

“We celebrate each one of you because of your vision to apply, the resilience you had to finish because I’m sure it wasn’t easy especially because sometimes it’s mostly online and the creativity that you have all put together. Today you will see the incredible production that some of you have put together in film and on stage.”

‘Somebody believed in you and it’s the institution and your family that invested in you. So we want to thank Mastercard Foundation for supporting free education and investing in futures that might have otherwise gone unseen. And to think that this is the 30,445 people graduated thus far is unbelievable. And that’s the power of imagination.” 

She admonished the students to use their voice to uplift others, to use their craft to challenge injustice, and use your stage to light up the world. “You now have the tools, you have the talent, and you have gotten the training. What you do with what you have obtained is entirely yours,” she stressed.

The event witnessed the unveiling of Oluwabamike Adebuniyan, known as Bambam as TAFTA’s brand ambassador, to the delight of the guests and graduating students.