Call for proposals: African Crossroads Collaboration Grants

African Crossroads is a pan-African network that is inspired to collaborate, engage seasonally and act together on emerging issues across the continent. It aims to tap into Africa’s vast potential and thrives on collective intelligence, cooperative action, and experimentation to positively shape the future of African societies.

Why collaborate?

Collaboration grants are intended to support and develop peer-to-peer learnings and skills exchange among creatives and tech entrepreneurs. The programme is designed for proposals contemplating collaboration and other forms of partnerships that will increase knowledge and capacities to achieve more together than each can accomplish alone.

Types of projects funded

Collaboration grants of up to €25 000 are offered to organisations and individuals, multidisciplinary hubs and collectives that are working across arts practice, culture, heritage and technology to collaborate and deliver projects that speak to the following:

• Production of works that aim to build connections, and partnerships across North, East and Southern African countries.
• Project proposals that seek to share knowledge with wider groups and communities to exchange ideas.
• Project proposals that propel digital innovation and practice.
• Projects that offer diversification of dialogue, debate and dissent in society referring to history, memory, challenging pre-dominant narratives and media in different disciplines.
• Projects can take the form of regional exchanges, exhibitions, installations, dialogues, and the production and presentation of new work across all creative art forms including music, literature, film and audio-visual, to be presented at the annual African Crossroads showcasing event in October 2023.
• Projects that focus on the following audio and visual disciplines: music, rap, hip hop, DJ-ing, VJ-ing, graphic design, fashion design, comics, cartoons, animation, comedy, satire, poetry, slam poetry, spoken word, storytelling, radio shows, radio series, TV show, TV series, online TV show, TV series, sculpture (objects), vlogs, visual art (painting, drawing, printmaking, digital art), photography, feature film, documentary, mixed media, installation, performance, short film, video, virtual reality, and videogame.

Thematic areas of focus

• Creative solidarity and interconnection.
• Responsibility and accountability of climate justice in Africa.
• Why popular cultural expressions matter: influences on gender and feminism.
• Creative expressions: challenging exclusionary beliefs and embodying new narratives.
• African futurism: creating the Africa we want.

Application guidelines

• The grants are open to African Crossroads and R.O.O.M. applicants based in East, North and Southern Africa.
• A maximum of two partners can collaborate and should submit one grant application.
• Applicants should determine beforehand who will act as the lead applicant. The lead applicant takes full responsibility for the application process, contract intake, receiving the grant amount, distributing the funds according to the budget, securing project implementation, delivering both the narrative report and financial report.
• Applicants need to have a bank account and a registered legal entity.
• Activities should take place between June 2023 to 31 January 2024.

How to apply

To submit an application in English, applicants should fill the application form here before 15 June.

Timeline

• Deadline: 15 June.
• Grant amount: €25 000 (including VAT).
• Grant period: June 2023 to 31 January 2024.
• Final reporting deadline: 31 January 2024.

Any questions or support regarding the application, should be emailed to proposals.hubsaf@hivos.org.

View the original call here.