Young Creatives Grant
The young creatives grant started in 2022 out of the need to empower and support more young creatives and young people in general.
Inside I’m a creative, I’ve seen so many projects come to life because of finances - finances are very important in the creative industry.
We saw there was a need in our community for creatives to be empowered. The first grant saw over 100 applications, once promoted on social media.
The interview process isn’t rigorous and it’s like that on purpose. We want to get to know creatives and if creatives feel like they are too under pressure real creativity is stifled.
The interview process was very inspirational. I spoke to so many different aspirational creatives. So many young people doing different things in a variety of fields from fashion, art, to media and more. I was so impressed with what some of these young people had created with little no finance.
This year’s grant saw Ficos world CIC collaborate with creative agency ‘The Crtv hub’; which is a creative agency run by young people for young people. They have been able to engage with 100s of young people being just under a year old.
It was great collaborating with them as they’re as passionate as we are as an organisation that targets young people. This allowed us to expand our reach, and over the two years we have been able to reach over 300 aspirational creatives between the ages of 17 - 29.
We know the huge challenges that the industry faces and having spoken to a lot of creatives, were learning and understanding more about the changes that need to be made. We do wish we could fund a lot more creatives but we’re making a start.
Last year we were able to fund two amazing projects, one led by Jacob Talowoski and another by a platform called a New nation
We’re currently in our interview process for our current creative grant and I’ve met so many creatives and surprisingly a lot of them female.
I’m excited to be able to empower another set of creatives this year and we’ll be announcing the winners on the 20th January 2023.
Wishing All the best to those who have applied
Shadia Dougan