Funding for Art Organisations Across Coventry.

Photo by Deeana Arts on Pexels

Seven organisations have been awarded funding up to £12,000 from Coventry City Council. The bursaries from the Arts and Culture project grant scheme range from between £5,000 and £12,000.

The seven are:

• Art Riot Collective

• Arty Folks

• Feeding Coventry

• Positive Images Festival

• STAMP Productions

• Starfish Collaborative

• U Island

These organisations will be delivering activities until April 2023, and the aim of the scheme is to provide opportunities to people in areas of Coventry that are less likely to participate in artistic and cultural activities.

To apply for this scheme, the art companies had to prove that they engaged with Coventry residents who belonged to at least one of these groups:

• From Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic backgrounds

• Have a disability

• Living in one of the 28 areas of highest deprivation in Coventry

The funding for these grants comes from Art Council England, a larger collaboration between the National Lottery and public money from the government.

The goal of the national development agency for creativity and culture is ‘for the creativity of everyone in England to be valued and given the chance to flourish’. Art Council England invests £97.3 million of National Lottery funding per year in the National Lottery Project Grants.

Originally established to support Coventry's time as the UK City of Culture, this is the fourth round of funding to be awarded as part of a two-year bursary programme.

The Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities at Coventry City Council, Councillor David Welsh, said: ‘We’re delighted to award funding to organisations who will deliver vital arts and cultural projects in local communities’.

‘Partners delivering these activities have given opportunities to people to get involved in arts and cultural projects when they might not have had these opportunities before. We look forward to working with the selected organisations and seeing the latest round of activities delivered across the city,’ David added.

Positive Images Festival is a volunteer-run organisation that aims to celebrate Coventry’s proud heritage and nurture local communities. It received £8,824 from the grant.

Launch of the 2018 Positive Images Festival

Emilie Lauren Jones, the vice chair of the committee, said, 'This money means we can do something new', the festival will be working with Emilie's company Thrive to put on an outdoor workshop. ‘We’re focused on people we don’t think have attended Positive Images events before’, she added.

This year marks the 28th anniversary of the free festival, and the poet laureate credits this success to there is need for events like it. Emilie, who has been working with the festival for six years, said, 'Coventry is very multicultural and this is something that brings people together and by the community, I mean areas of the City, faith communities and all of those things'.

'There are so many people I've met through this festival that I never would've known otherwise,’ Emilie added.

The organisation not only throws the Positive Images Festival annually, but it also holds community events throughout the year.

Last year, 17,000 people attended the annual festival, with the launch of next year's three-week programme of arts events is expected to be in June.