In early 2019 a grant of R1.26 m was made by the British Council’s Developing Inclusive and Creative Economies (DICE) Fund to the Makers Valley Partnership (MVP).
This one-year grant has enabled five local organisations to innovate and grow their work in support of creative and social entrepreneurism, while the Makers Valley Partnership was incubated as an intermediary organisation by the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership (JICP). The outcome of this incubation has been the establishment of MVP as a registered non-profit organisation.
The programme included support from the UK-based Real Ideas Organisation (RIO), an expert in strengthening social enterprises.
The key focus of the programme is empowering women, youth, people with disabilities, and other marginalised groups including the LGBTI sector, to participate in social and creative entrepreneurial activity.
The five local partner organisations were Curriculum Development Project (CDP); 94Colours; Enke Make your Mark; Re-Imagination, and 26’10 South Architects.
Each of these organisations was granted funding to be used in support of the programme objectives. Training, mentorship and small amounts of seed funding were provided for awarding on a competitive basis to start-up social and creative enterprises.
The programme’s culminating activity was to have been a Mega Market, where the Seed Funding winners would showcase their wares, during the Makers Valley Festival in March.
Due to the COVID-19 lockdown, the Festival has unfortunately had to be postponed until further notice. However there are plans to continue providing the Seed Funding winners with online mentoring.