Empowering creative freelancers and small organisations by providing development opportunities, access to funding, and connections to create resilient, thriving practitioners in the West Midland's ecosystem of creativity.
Read more on our work with Solihull College of how a Venue technician bootcamp has helped to fill skills gaps in creative industries.
WMCA present ACTIVATE, a skills and business programme for the Cultural and Creative sector, a development initiative that forms part of the Commonwealth Games Legacy Enhancement Fund.
Activate opens access and increases opportunities for career development and enhancement, helping to build a more equitable and collaborative sector that fully reflects and represents communities within the West Midlands.
What is ACTIVATE
A programme to grow the cultural and creative ecosystem of the West Midland's that will empower freelancers and small organisations to advance their career through a series of tailored workshops, mentoring, masterclasses, networking opportunities, and wellbeing support.
In addition, Activate Grants will be made available to creatives to unlock learning and development opportunities.
What ACTIVATE Offers:
One of the primary pillars for the CWGLEF delivery is to increase the resilience of the West Midlands cultural sector and creative freelancers. This will be achieved through interventions focusing on regional level skills development and bespoke business support which includes the:
1. ACTIVATE - workshops, masterclasses, mentoring and networking opportunities.
2. Internship Programme - to open access to culture and the creative industries and support the next generation of talent to enter the sector.
3. Future Boards Accelerator Programme - to support people from the global majority to develop skills and confidence to take on board memberships within the cultural sector as well as train organisations to better support board members. For more information click here.
4. ACTIVATE Grants - grants ranging from £1,000 - £9,000 to support freelancers and small organisations to access learning and development opportunities to support and develop their creative business and artistic practice.
The programme will run from September - December 2024.
Details on how to apply coming soon. For any further enquiries on the Activate programme you can contact the team on: culture@wmca.org.uk