ACF ACADEMY is a pan-African program for the professionalization and strengthening of crafts in Africa. It’s a program of incubation and support for young visual artists and cultural managers set up by the African Culture Fund (ACF), and which aims to stimulate and strengthen the competitiveness of African art professionals through the organization of artistic training camps (arts training), artistic creation residencies and capacity building in cultural management around five (05) centers of artistic and cultural excellence in all regions from Africa: North Africa (Tunisia), Central Africa (Kinshasa), West Africa (Mali); Southern Africa (Johannesburg), East Africa (Seychelles and Kenya).
The first batch of the program concerns artistic and cultural poles in West Africa (Mali) and North Africa (Tunisia). This call concerns the first BOOT CAMP dedicated to young cultural managers from West Africa.
It is in this context that the ACF launched on August 12 the 1st call for applications of the ACF ACADEMY, for the BOOT CAMP #1 intended for West Africa, in partnership with the Kôrè Institute of Arts and crafts (IKAM) and with the support of the Swiss Cooperation in Mali, to selecting 18 young cultural managers from West Africa (09 women and 09 men), to take part in the BOOT CAMP #1 planned in Ségou from November 2021 and whose support and monitoring will extend over 18 months.
At the closing date, which happened on September 12, 78 APPLICATIONS from 9 West African countries (Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Togo, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, Niger, Mauritania) were registered.
The selection process was undertaken in three stages: the registration and examination of the applications leading to a clean registration file, the preselection and evaluation, and the final selection by an autonomous selection panel.
The selection panel, made up of a representative of IKAM (Mr. Bourama Diarra), two independent experts (Mr. Robert Nantchouang and Mr. Jean-Luc Sonhaye), and two representatives of the ACF administration (Mr. Robert Coulibaly and Mrs. Youma Djigué), met virtually on October 05, 2021, to proceed to the final selection.
At the end of the deliberation, 18 candidates were selected from 8 West African countries (09 women and 09 men).
The African Culture Fund would like to renew its thanks to the Swiss Cooperation in Mali for the confidence and the support as well as to the Kôrè Institute of Arts and Crafts for the technical support.