Terra Academy for the Arts, a free online creative art academy in partnership with the MasterCard Foundation has graduated 9000 students on various creative arts courses in its third cohort graduation ceremony held on Friday 11th April in Lagos with the theme “Celebrating Creative Transformation”.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony, the founder of the academy, Bolanle Austen Peters, stated that the academy has graduated 30,445 students across Nigeria since its inception in 2020.
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She said the academy’s vision is to address youth idleness and lack of access to creative education, equip young Nigerians with industry-relevant skills for film and stage, and help students optimize their entrepreneurial capacity to secure sustainable employment.
She further urged the graduating students to be agents of change and thanked the MasterCard Foundation for sponsoring the program.
In her remarks, the keynote speaker and Mastercard Foundation Country Director Mrs Rosy Fynn said the foundation has engaged policymakers, government bodies, and associations that are involved in the industry to ensure that the creative arts become more structured, more standardized, and more beneficial for young people as well as the economy as a whole.
She said the mission of Mastercard Foundation is to enable 30 million young Africans, particularly young women, to access dignified and fulfilling work by 2030. She further applauded the 2025 class for their talents and urged them to use their creative skills to light their path, and emphasize the need for them to explore the creative and cultural industries economic potentials which according to her are estimated to be around 15 billion dollars to Nigeria’s GDP.
The event had in attendance students from Kano, Ogun, and Lagos State as well as notable Nollywood actors such as seasoned actor Bimbo Manuel, and actress Bamike Olawunmi, popularly known as Bambam, who was named an ambassador of the academy, among others.
The highlight of the event was the premiere of a documentary produced by one of the former students, the unveiling of the Mafarki movie trailer produced by students from Kano as well as a stage performance by the graduating students.
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