Hivos (Humanistisch Instituut voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking) a Dutch organization for development yesterday launched the Zambia Media & Creativity Fund at the Courtyard Hotel in Lusaka.
At a roundtable meeting for invited stake-holders that included the arts and culture community, media organisations, commercial enterprises and individual professionals, Hivos announced that the "Zambia Media & Creativity Fund envisions supporting initiatives by Zambians that clearly demonstrate innovation, as well as building of capacity within the established arts, culture and media sector. The fund will focus on media, art professionals and volunteers with an intermediary role: journalists, bloggers, performers, artists, cultural and ICT entrepreneurs and their initiatives, media and platforms.
Capacity building through training and exchange will be an important inherent part of the Zambia Media & Creativity Fund. By setting up a network within the country, the Zambia Media & Creativity Fund will stimulate peer exchange and common learning.
For 2011, € 132.000 is available to be allocated through a maximum of 6 grants. The size of the grants has been defined on basis of the following strategic objectives:
3 grants of € 12.000 for ‘small/upcoming’ innovative and possibly ‘risky’ projects. For example for individual initiatives like digital natives – discussions on Facebook on where in Lusaka there are potholes and a radio station to feature that in a 5 minutes morning spot every time till city council does something about it.
3 grants of € 32.000 for bigger ideas and organisations, for more expensive projects like for example ‘urban art’ or creating a social space to use internet, meet and engage.
Together with the awarding of the grant, a training and/or exchange programme will be defined jointly between the partner organisation and Hivos for each specific project. This will be designed after a baseline study which will be carried out with partners selected after the call for proposals.
They will take off as part of the Expression & Engagement programme of the Southern Africa regional office of Hivos and will run from 2011-2015. The proposals will be selected and grants awarded under the responsibility of the programme officer Expression & Engagement for Southern Africa. The administration of the programme will be handled by the regional office of Hivos.
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