The art and culture sectors of East Africa are broad, diverse and dynamic.  They are also fragmented and poorly funded.   

Traditional practitioners are here, contemporary visual artists are over there, filmmakers and fashion designers in these different areas, museums and galleries in this other space, musicians, dancers, actors, writers… There are so many disciplines that generally operate in silos, especially outside of urban centres and class structures.  

The art and culture sectors are also often competing for limited resources.  This fund aims to create a process that is community oriented and equitable, one that recognises the unique ability of the cultural sector to respond and bring perspective to the most pressing issues society is facing.  

By braiding together our practices, people and more, all of us in the creative and cultural sectors in East Africa can grow and strengthen our skills, networks and earning potential while safeguarding heritage for future generations.

The grants are accessible to: 

• Art and Culture Practitioners
• Artists and Artisans of Urban and Rural Communities
• Art and Culture Organizations
• Cultural practitioners who want to work together 
• Applicants who are willing to document and share their work online

While we are open to all art or culture practitioners and all mediums/disciplines, we will be giving priority to: 

• Early career practitioners
• Rural practitioners
• Women and gender nonconforming peoples
• Community-based projects
• People living with disabilities
• Practitioners from disciplines or spaces usually not represented in large-scale art/culture programs**

**Examples include but are not limited to:  

• Traditional practitioners (including musicians and instrument makers, weavers, textile artists, ceramists, carvers, woodworkers, cooks, healers, ceremonialists, storytellers, dancers, designers, architects, craftsmen)
• Natural heritage (including biodiversity, sacred sites, flora and fauna, etc)
• Food heritage (including traditional foods and crops, farming methods, ceremonial foods, food systems, heritage seeds, etc)
• Body artists (including tattoo, henna, braiding, piercing)
• Storytelling (including puppeteers, new media, folklore)
• Illustrators (including cartoonists, caricaturists, political cartoonists)
• Writers (including poets, creative writers, critics, historians, local publications/magazines)
• Theatre (including actors, playwrights, set designers, costume designers, light designers, rehearsal time)
• Digital Arts (graphic design, animation)
• Music (studio time, collaborations, music videos)
• Movement artists (including dance, acrobatics, martial arts, rehearsal time, space)
• Local cultural centres (including museums, natural or sacred spaces, art spaces, galleries)
• Visual arts (including curation, installation, conceptual arts, AR/VR, etc)
• Sound arts (including sound design, soundscapes, etc)
• Comedy (including comics, productions, writers, satirists)
• Designers (including interior design, product design, fashion, traditional dress, accessories, costume)
• Craft Festivals/Fairs

The Braid Fund currently supports practitioners and projects in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

Please note: Organizations that have received a grant from any British Council program (excluding Braid Fund) within the past 16 months (January 2023 to April 2024) of 5,000GBP or more are not eligible to apply for funding during this grant cycle but will be eligible for future cycles. This is to ensure we can support as many diverse organizations and initiatives as possible with our limited funding.

The Braid Fund application process is community led and shared through networks. Applications will be received only via the fund's online application form or official email address. Calls for applications will follow the schedule above.

The process involves two stages, each with questions for the applicant. Proposals will be evaluated and selections made by a team from the community, TICAH and the British Council. The process and expected timelines are:

Braid Fund offers grants for projects which demonstrate an innovation* around any or all of the three outcome areas:

1. Art and culture practitioners discover and share innovative ways to reach wider audiences with their work;
2. Stronger relationships and skills developed across art/culture practices and generations;
3. Increased knowledge and understanding of the value of arts and culture disciplines, practitioners and spaces.

*An “innovation” can be defined in a number of ways and is context specific. It could be a new way of sharing your work or engaging the community throughout the process of creating. It could be a new way of working and practicing your art or culture. It could be in the design of the project to include other disciplines or communities or content. “Innovation” doesn’t have to be about technology or completely new work (although it can be), but more about evolving your work in some way.

In 2024, Braid will offer three categories of grants:

• Completion - To support the finalization of projects that have already started;
• Collaboration - To support collaborations between different generations and/or between different art/culture disciplines;
• Continuation – To support the continuation of projects previously funded by the Braid Fund

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Your projects are your projects, and you determine how long they should last, but the support from the Braid Fund will only be for 6-8 months.

The next call for applications should open in April 2024, so be sure to share your email address with us to receive the latest information about the call. Follow us on social media as well, but most of the information will probably come through email.

Yes. You can apply as an individual, group, organization or business. If you are an individual, you must have either a business account or a separate bank account from your day-to-day account.

In 2024, all our grant categories will be for up to 750,000 KSH (~5,000 USD), but of course you can apply for less than this.

Please just apply for one category, the one you think is the best fit for your project.

Give us a shout at braidfund@ticahealth.org if you have any trouble with the application process and/or if you need help. We will try to support you as best we can or we will link you with a partner to help.

Unfortunately, our team doesn’t speak/read all the amazing vernacular languages of East Africa, so applications should be submitted in English. That said, we are happy to help link you with a partner who does speak your language to help you through the process of applying.

Yes, please do. Be sure to read all the materials about the Braid Fund so that your application connects with our goals and expected outcomes. In 2023, the common reasons for applications not to proceed was that: they were primarily for socio-economic development projects using art and culture as complementary tools as opposed to having arts and culture as the primary focus, and other applications were unrelated to any of the three outcomes of the fund.

Yes. In 2024, we will have a grant category specifically open to our grantee partners from the previous year. This category is called “Continuation” and is to support the continuation and evolution of some projects that were already funded by Braid.

Yes. Just please be open about what the situation is and what specific areas in your budget a Braid grant will cover.

Yes. Our grantees first meet in online training sessions as they are onboarded into the Braid Fund community and a WhatsApp group is created where they are encouraged to talk to one another and share resources and information. If funding is available, the Braid team will try to bring grantees together physically for events, residencies and/or exhibitions.

Yes and no. We are happy to help share what we know with our partners. Both TICAH and the British Council offer a range of support and occasional trainings for partners. For more in-depth formal trainings on business development (for example), there are a number of amazing colleagues working in this space that we can refer you too.  

In 2024, we want to find new ways to build connections and support our cultural heritage practices between each of us in the community. We are keen to find interesting ways to support continual learning and growth through a circular community, skills sharing practice, not just “capacity building” between the Braid Fund and the grantees, but within and among the grantee community itself.

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