NICH Reintroduces Revamped Belize Culture Fund

Today the National Institute of Culture and History, NICH launched a revamped Belize Culture Fund. The fund had been in existence years ago but was dormant for quite a few years. Following the COVID pandemic, however, the Ministry of Culture and people at NICH began discussing how they could reintroduce the fund. Minister of Culture, Francis Fonseca told the media today that after some planning and finalizing, it has come to pass. He explained what it entails and how an orange economy fund, created by the Belize Tourism Board will complement this current one.

Francis Fonseca

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Culture

“One of the key challenges for our artists or creative communities is really access to financing, access to resources. So even though this is a modest start, I think it’s an important start. So we’re, we’re putting together this culture fund where we will be giving out micro grants. We encourage everybody to visit the Ministry of Education website, the NICH site, to find out the details of the fund, how they as individual artists, but also as communities can gain access to these funds. So it’s very, very critical, because culture is at the center of Belize’s development. It’s a critical component of our social, cultural, economic development, but we also have to make sure that we’re providing resources for artists. They always ask how can we gain access to carry out and implement – that’s what this is all about. We believe it is an area of our economic development that we have not paid sufficient attention to. Over the last year, we’ve been doing a lot of work on that. We’ve been engaging with experts, consultants, to prepare a plan, along with the BTB, along with the Ministry of Tourism, um, for the orange economy. Um, so I know that BTB, for example, is preparing to launch our orange economy fund, you know, along the lines of the culture development fund that will complement the work that we’re doing. And again, the whole idea is how can we through the orange economy create economic opportunities for people. The orange economy, if you look at the global picture, is a multi-billion dollar economy and we have not fully participated in that economy. So there’s great potential for opportunity there, creating jobs, creating, um, you know, economic benefits. So, you know, we’re excited about the future of the orange economy.”