Harare — The Culture Fund of Zimbabwe will this year disburse nearly $4 quadrillion to artists, organisations and individuals who applied for funding to engage in cultural activities.

The money will be handed over to 125 projects that were selected from all art genres that include fine arts and crafts, cultural industries and the performing arts. Twenty seven projects from the cultural heritage category were successful while cultural industries had 19 with film audio and multi-media providing only seven.

In fine arts, 30 projects were successful while literature and languages also had 30 successful entries. The Culture Fund board indicated that some entries were approved on gender basis in which 26 women-driven projects got the nod for funding while 31 projects from their male counterparts were also approved.

In addition, nine grants were also awarded to schools, while a further 18 were awarded to national and provincial festivals including the Prisons Rehabilitation Arts Festival. As part of its capacity building programme, two HK Audio PA systems were awarded to Jairos Jiri and Music Crossroads respectively to spearhead the youth development talent search programmes.

The award of PA system also came as a major boost to Music Crossroads that will begin its provincial selection sometime in August after the interregional finals to be held in Malawi soon. Culture Fund chairman Luxon Zembe hailed the committees that presided over the entries for sterling job in coming up with deserving artists. "As they did in 2007, six sub-sector committees met over a period of three weeks between May and June," he said. "Guided by their respective sector priorities and sensitive to the broader priorities of the Culture Fund, they recommended about 350 out of 750 for funding at different levels. Out of these, about 100 received strong recommendations."

Zembe said some applications were turned down due to a number of short falls. He said some projects were unsuccessful because they fell outside the funding priorities while some forms were not dully filed in, denying the Board information necessary in assessing the application.

He also advised the successful applicants to attend a grantees seminar in their nearest region before the disbursement of the funds.