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‘Play’ refers to the Caribbean concept of ‘playing mas’, which has become a strategy of adaptation used to navigate social, economic and environmental forces outside the region’s control in spite of centuries of cultural suppression. This Caribbean body of ‘play’ and work – past, present and future – remains untapped although it has served to unify the region creatively and geostrategically.

The acronym also stands for:

• Planning and Research
• Literacy and Capacity Building
• Accelerators and Financing
• Yield and Dissemination

The project is aimed at providing grants and improving the economic conditions of creatives to stimulate sustainable growth of the Caribbean's Creative and Culture Industry (CCI) while positioning the CCI as a catalyst for social and economic growth.

The grant is intended to enable these organizations to successfully develop new ventures, programmes and projects for their target communities and demographics, which will go a long way in making their own work and the work of their target communities sustainable. The grant will also enable the organizations who receive it to design, implement and engage in any suitable activities that:

• Strengthen the creative and cultural ecosystem in which practitioners and organizations operate in their respective countries.
• Improve the access and visibility of the diverse creative and cultural sectors in the Caribbean.
• Promote economic growth of the creative and cultural sector in the Caribbean.

The Project was approved to be 40 months long and applications ended in 2024.

The Creative Caribbean Project offers grant financing to creative and cultural businesses and organizations in the 15 Caribbean countries mentioned at question 5. The project must also be implemented in one or more of these 15 Caribbean countries. (See question 14 for more on the financing available for each grant)

Participants could apply for a grant if they fell in any of the following categories:

• Creative Caribbean Industry (CCI) actors, artists, entrepreneurs with emphasis on young to mid-career practitioners (50% women, 40% youth up to 32 yrs.)
  1. Improved social and economic rights, access to opportunity for content & product development, training, jobs, and mobility that align with regional strategic objective (at least 10% growth above baseline);
  2. Improved capacity for growth through representation within 6 - 8 registered associations for financial inclusion, improved credibility, recognition, formalisation and global legitimisation;
  3. 160 CCI practitioners (40 youth, 50% women) from 10 countries to receive developed capacity to participate in the formal CCI structure, sustaining at least 200 jobs and business opportunities; 3 categories of innovative financial support programmes provided through at least 10 enabling, industry and training grants across the festival marketplace/trade route, content hub and accelerators;
  4. Increased access to CCI business development opportunities for women and youth aligned with SDGs, at least 10% above baseline;
  5. Improved access for women-led/women focused organisations and entities (50%), and/or youth up to 32 years old (40%) including through work placement and involvement in thematic networks.
• Registered CCI professional organizations, associations, collectives, guilds, civil society organizations (CSOs) and groups, their officers and members with a focus on intermediary arts organizations for youth at risk.
  1. Improved capacity for growth (at least 10% above baseline) CCI sector-specific associations through formalisation, financial inclusion, improved credibility, recognition, inclusion in the formal governance structure, and global legitimisation;
  2. Registered CCI organisations benefit from an improved data-enabled ecosystem enhanced through research, policy, legislation, registries and institutional strengthening (at least 30 organisations);
  3. At least 25% increased access to finance and support for intermediary arts organizations for youth at risk, aligned with development goals (at least 300 youth).
• Secondary and tertiary academic faculty, students and researchers.
  1. Increased access to training through financial support provided in scholarships especially for youth (40%) and women (50%);
  2. Improved visual literacy & performing arts curricula in at least 14 schools and institutions and at least 20 scholarships (youth 40% and women 50%) in 10 countries to provide exposure, job pathways, and cultural confidence;
  3. 50 training of trainers opportunities in visual literacy and performing arts to support youth cultural development and institutional strengthening for cutting-edge social transformation;
  4. Increased capacity to develop content & competitive products through training, internships, and mobility that align with regional strategic objectives (25% increase above baseline);
  5. Support increased for development of content for 15 children’s programmes, public performance including their representation in film festivals and art biennials.

The Final Beneficiaries are:

• Originators, producers, managers and consumers of Caribbean CCI products, content and events (20,000) - Creative community members will benefit through experience in and through festivals, participation in content hub, business fora, stakeholder meetings and through mainstreaming activities in thematic networks and communication strategy across the region, and the Caribbean Diaspora. Improved training in visual literacy, financial support via grants, understanding of the creative ecosystem including the business of festival development, festival roots/routes, product development among others serve to build the total community and ecosystem.
• Secondary, tertiary, continuing education and training institutions delivering CCI curricula (50 teachers, principals and department heads, and 5000 students) - Improved training and skills development for principals, teachers, teacher trainers at visual and performing arts secondary and tertiary institutions for delivery of visual and performing arts curriculum. Improved understanding of visual literacy, performing arts, and the creative ecosystem among students as well as improved understanding of the paths to creative jobs and content production, increased awareness of youth, gender, equality, diversity and inclusion, and enhanced secondary student interest in pursuing tertiary and post-tertiary training in visual literacy & performing arts.
• Children and adolescents (2000) - Strengthened focus on school aged children through content production for use in school and after school clubs, primary and secondary educational institutions, and religious organisations. Increased involvement of production houses that create and disseminate children's programmes.
• CCI related Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of Government, and partner institutions including chambers of commerce and financing institutions - Increased support for CCI initiatives undertaken by public and civil society officials, within government MDAs and by Directors of Culture; cultural mediators; service providers within Ministries of Culture in the region; managers of private financing institutions and development banks (100 officials in 14 countries).
• Communities, municipalities and the people of CARICOM and subgroups within the 15 Member Countries that will benefit from the action’s objective to enhance development of a sustainable regional CCI ecosystem in the short, medium and long term (at least 1.5 m citizens).

Industry Grant schemes are available under the following subsections:

• Festival Development & Marketplace, Work Placement, and Knowledge Transfer – awards up to USD 179,000
• Artist Mobility – awards up to USD 17,000
• Product Development & Content Production – awards up to USD 29,000
• Small Grants for Professional Associations – awards up to USD 19,000
• Small Grants for Emerging Creative Content Originators – awards up to USD 19,000
• Scaling Grants for Export-Ready Creatives – awards up to USD 29,000
• CCI Festival Business Exchange, Network and Fora – awards up to USD 35,000

Enabling Environment Grant schemes are available under the following subsections:

• Visual Literacy/Performing Arts – awards up to USD 47,000
• National Artist Registry – awards up to USD 47,000
• Cultural Policy, National Implementation Plans, Legislation, Institutional Strengthening – awards up to USD 47,000
• Creative City Sub-Sector Accelerators – awards up to USD 95,000

2024 round of grant calls is closed and assessments for the final awardees are underway.