Three local organisations have received funding from the Inter-American Development Bank's (IDB) Cultural Development Programme (CDP) this month.The organisations are Citizens for Conservation, Freetown Foundation and the Trinidad Theatre Workshop (TTW). The organisations are among ten groups from seven Caricom countries to receive funding from the programme.The CDP is run by IDB's Cultural Center and aims to promote cultural development in Latin America and the Caribbean through partnerships and financing, according to the IDB Web site.The groups were chosen from 867 project applications from which 45 were finally selected. The 45 projects will take place in 26 countries. According to the IDB, the selected projects were evaluated in part on their long-term impact, educational scope and viability.
Citizens for Conservation and the Freetown Foundation will be working together on the Belmont Freetown community cultural heritage conservation and tourism project. The project seeks to establish Belmont as a model heritage community and will entail a lecture series, tours and tour-guide training programme over a five-week period.President of the Freetown Foundation, Elton Scantlebury told the T&T Guardian in a telephone interview the project was part of his foundation's larger programme to establish a heritage museum in Belmont. Scantlebury also said it was part of a mission to identify and preserve local heritage communities in T&T.He said the project was not only for Belmont but the entire country. The lecture series and tours will be held later this year and are open to the public, but will target similar non-profit organisations based in Belmont.
The TTW will use the funding towards expanding its School for the Arts programme. The money from the IDB will go towards scholarships for students in the School for the Arts programme.
TTW assistant director Timmia Hearn Feldman said the TTW is seeking to make the programme more sustainable for students particularly teens and children. The School for the Arts programme is set-up as an alternative to negative influences on teenagers in the Belmont area such as crime and violence.The public library for the arts will be an easily accessible space for theatre literature and theory. The TTW is also working towards digitising its archives, she said.Other regional organisations who received funding include: The College of the Bahamas, Bahamian Women in Music, Humana People to People (Belize) Tina Insanally Foundation (Guyana), Caracoli (Haiti), Manchester Parish Development Committee (Jamaica), VIDS (Suriname).