Avalanche of Applications for Culture Grants: 40 Recipients Chosen

Forty persons who wanted to share with the wider public their idea of an artistic or cultural project received support from the September Celebrations Committee on Thursday. The Committee had invited people from all districts to submit their ideas during its Belize at 40 Innovative Grants project for which forty thousand dollars were allocated. Minister of Culture and Chairman of the National Celebrations Commission, Francis Fonseca shared his view that while this is just the start for the grant recipients.

Francis Fonseca

Francis Fonseca, Chair, National Celebrations Commission

“Today represents an opportunity for us to, again, change the narrative, to change the culture in terms of how we view our creative people in Belize – our artistic community – our musicians, our dancers, our woodwork artists. This provides an opportunity for us to show them that we are appreciative of their talents, of their skills and that we want to continue to invest in them and to give them every opportunity that we can to allow those creative ideas that they have, those innovative ideas, to grow into something meaningful for them, for their families, and of course, something that they can share with their communities and the wider Belizean people.”

Over a hundred and fifty applications were submitted, and while only about one-third of the applicants received the support, the concepts from the other applicants will be shared with BELTRAIDE and the Belize Tourism Board, which also have grants programs that they run throughout the year. The hope is that these organizations can review the submissions and provide some assistance to those applicants.