Cosoma disburses K75 million to creatives
Copyright Society of Malawi through the Copyright Fund has awarded K75 million grants to 12 successful artists for the development of various arts and cultural activities. Copyright Fund Chairperson Christopher Magomero announced the grants yesterday in Lilongwe at a press conference. The successful applicants include Sunrise Publications, Tumbuka…
By Deogratias Mmana & Sapulain Chitonde Lee:
Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) through the Copyright Fund has awarded K75 million grants to 12 successful artists for the development of various arts and cultural activities.
Copyright Fund Chairperson Christopher Magomero announced the grants yesterday in Lilongwe at a press conference.
He said the awardees will get the funds in January next year and will be expected to roll out their activities in February.
The successful applicants include Sunrise Publications, Tumbuka Heritage, Mulhakho wa Alhomwe, Eka Language Services, Malawi University of Science and Technology, Lucky Chikopa, Music Crossroads Malawi, Film Association of Malawi, Story Club, Kuwala Creatives, Young Women Rise and Karonga Debate.
“Almost all successful applicants are being awarded less than what they had applied for due to issues of exaggeration of costs observed in the budgets.” Magomero said.
He said the copyright fund committee will begin monitoring the activities in February next year.
Magomero said the fund manager will also draft a nationwide capacity building programme on project proposal writing from January to target the failed and potential applicants to improve the quality of applications to the subsequent cycles.
The projects are in the categories of publishing, heritage preservation, performing arts, visual arts and other cross-cutting activities.
Following a call for proposals, the fund received 110 applications.
The highest recipient has received K9.6 million with the lowest being K2.9 million.
Copyright Fund Manager Blessings Botha congratulated the successful recipients and called upon them to use the funds for the intended purposes.
The Copyright Fund which is a government initiative aimed at investing in the creativity and growth of copyright industries, was launched by Minister of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife Michael Usi in Lilongwe in September this year.
The copyright body said during the launch that Cosoma used to administer on behalf of Norwegian Embassy Cultural Support Scheme from 2005 to 2017 which was mainly for capacity building for right holder associations but its phasing out led to the creation of Copyright Fund
