Call for applications: East Africa travel grant

The grant supports UK-based festival directors, festival programmers, agents and/or bookers to travel to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan to conduct research aimed at igniting partnerships between the creative sectors of the UK and East Africa through showcase and collaborative opportunities. 

Research can take the following forms:

• Meetings with potential artists and partners.
• Finding out more about your chosen art forms’ ecosystem in a particular country or countries.
• An understanding of art trends in East Africa.
• Meeting arts organisations and/or attending events and festivals with a view to programming or curating work in the UK. 

The travel grant offers support for nine types of art forms:

• Visual Arts
• Literature
• Music
• Theatre
• Dance
• Architecture
• Design
• Fashion
• Film

The deadline for applications is 17 September 2018.  

Financial support

The British Council’s East Africa Arts programme will award up to five research grants and each applicant will receive £2 500 ($3 300).

Eligibility criteria

The trips should take place between November 2018 and October 2019.To qualify for this grant applicants must:

• Have a minimum of five years professional experience in their sector. 
• Demonstrate how the research proposal aligns with (or addresses) at least one of the three key objectives of the East Africa Arts programme. 
• Demonstrate experience in working with international partners to deliver and collaborative on arts programmes. 
• Have a basic knowledge of festivals in the region which is being visited (although the British Council will provide support in putting together a detailed programme).

Successful applicants will be expected to do the following: 

• Commit time before the visit for preparation and research, including a briefing session in advance (either in person or via video conference) with the relevant British Council arts manager, as well as some of your contacts in East Africa. 
• Share with the British Council’s East Africa Arts team an activity plan that outlines travel dates, artists/organisations/festivals you will be meeting and an overview of your objectives before departure for the research visit. 
• Post no less than 10 photos from each country visited and post a minimum of one blog posts/articles on your own platform, the British Council or another platform interested in your insight. 
• Use the #EastAfricaArts on all posts about this research trip across social media.
• Provide a final report outlining the main research finding and potential suggestions for future programmes. The report could be in form of written, digital, film, photo essay, interviews or podcast.
• Organise, in consultation with the British Council, a public forum in the UK to share the research findings with the creative community. 

For the full British Council call, click here. To apply for the travel grant online, click here. Visit the British Council’s official website here.