SINGAPORE: Singaporeans with good ideas on how to capture and celebrate Singapore's shared heritage will now find it easier to turn these ideas into reality.
The National Heritage Board (NHB) wants to encourage more Singaporeans to lend a voice to the Singapore story through its new Heritage Grant Scheme.
The S$5-million grant will provide funding to individuals and groups such as non-profit interest groups, societies and organisations with little or no financial support to develop heritage projects which will deepen Singaporeans' learning and appreciation of the nation's heritage.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced this at the launch of this year's HeritageFest, which runs from 19 to 28 July.
Mr Lee said: "The government doesn't own the Singapore heritage. It doesn't define the Singapore heritage. Our heritage is a collection of individual memories woven together into a national story. It's something that belongs to every Singaporean, and which each one of us can contribute to and help to preserve, individually and collectively."
He noted that heritage is essential to people and nations as "it anchors our sense of place and identity, it enables a nation to adapt to change and progress, and it is the yin to the yang of material progress."
Mr Lee added: "I hope many more will step forward to contribute your own ideas to celebrate our cultural heritage, not just during HeritageFest, but every day of our lives, to move beyond just being passive audiences of heritage content, to being active creators and participants."
The money will be disbursed to the community over the next four years and the NHB will call for proposals from 1 August.
The scheme is made up of two grants.
The Heritage Participation Grant supports a wide range of small-scale projects. It has a funding cap of S$50,000 for each successful applicant per financial year.
The Heritage Project Grant, which caps funding at S$150,000 for each successful applicant per financial year, provides support for projects that make a significant and lasting impact and addresses the gaps in Singapore's heritage scene.
A person or organisation can successfully apply for multiple projects in a single financial year but funding will be capped at these specific amounts.
The grant quantum for the Heritage Participation Grant is expected to range between S$1,000 and S$30,000, or up to 50 percent of the total realistic project expenditure, whichever is less, and will be open for applications six times a year.
The grant quantum for the Heritage Project Grant is expected to be S$30,000 or up to 50 percent of the total realistic project expenditure, whichever is less, and will be open for applications twice a year.
Rosa Daniel, CEO of NHB, said: "We're very encouraged by people who have already come to us to say, ?Can you support this idea??, and it was because we saw such a groundswell of interest, we have noticed that in the last few years, there has really been added interest from Singaporeans to want to contribute and it was really in response to that that we said. Now, this is quite timely."
The new grant scheme will complement existing NHB efforts as well as grant schemes administered by the National Arts Council for the arts.
NHB also said it is heartened by how Singaporeans are making the annual HeritageFest a festival for the people, by the people.
Visitorship to the HeritageFest has surged from 620,000 in 2004 to 1.3 million in 2012.
When it first started in 2004, the HeritageFest was largely driven by NHB. Over the past 10 years, more Singaporeans have come on board to share stories of their own heritage by organising heritage trails as well as sharing items close to their hearts at the festival.?
Source: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/new-scheme-set-up-to/751236.html
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