LOTTERY APPLICATIONS

Lottery Fund opens door for arts, culture, heritage and environment funding applications

A wide range of non-profit organisations – from environmental and eco-tourism groups, to organisations engaged in all forms of the arts, and those that preserve and promote South African heritage – are encouraged to seize a two-month window of opportunity to apply for National Lottery funding.

The National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) has made a call for funding applications and envisages allocating funds to organisations engaged in activities that fall within the Arts, Culture, Environment and National Heritage Sector.

The closing date for applications is April 29, 2011.

“There are really two central themes underpinning the kinds of projects we are looking to fund,” says National Lotteries Board chairperson Professor Alfred Nevhutanda. “One is development and the empowerment of our least-advantaged citizens by enabling them to derive an income or a skill from cultural and artistic enterprise or ecotourism. And the other is creating and preserving art, culture and knowledge systems that are uniquely South African in nature – and of course, protecting our natural environment.”

To ensure that all forms of activity that fall within the sector benefit from this allocation, the total amount available has been divided as follows:

- A total of 40% will go to the arts to encourage the production of new, original work with a strongly South African flavour. This pool of funding will be equally sub-divided among: Craft and the visual arts; Traditional festivals; Film production and distribution, and Language and literature.

- Heritage projects will receive 30% of the total for the documentation of heritage, the exhibition of heritage, and the preservation of indigenous knowledge systems.

- Another 30% will go to environmental initiatives and ecotourism, encompassing greening projects, tree planting, training of women farmers, waste management and clean-ups, rehabilitation and sustainable management of fragile environments, and youth environmental programmes.

Further information on the criteria and the official application pack are obtainable in three ways.

- Electronically on the NLB website at: www.nlb.org.za/Application.asp

- By postal request addressed to the NLDTF, Central Applications Office – Arts Sector, Private Bag X101, Brooklyn Square, 0075 (You can also call 08600 65 383 to request that a pack be mailed to you)

- By collection from the NLB Information Centre, Block B, Hatfield Gardens, Cnr Arcadia and Hilda Streets, Hatfield, Pretoria.