 evening from wherever you're calling in from. Thank you for joining us today. Excuse me, I hope you are all over the weather and not under the weather like I am. But it's thank you for taking the time to join us for episode eight of our series, the story women stories women carry co-produced by the Tabari Arts Foundation and the Nairobi musical theater initiative and presented by Haoram. So thank you for being here. For those that are joining for the first time, my name is Karishma Pagani and I'm the official question asker as I like to say of the series where I have the opportunity of engaging with fantastic women from all over the continent and beyond as you will see later on in the season and just talking to them about their artistic practice and how it's relevant in the modern context. So today it is it is my pleasure to introduce Wafa. Hi Wafa. Hi. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for inviting me, it's a pleasure. Really, really appreciate it. You know, I was thinking about how to start off my introduction with you today and I thought there's nothing that I will be able to say that will do all the work that you do in all the various contexts, justice, but I really want audiences to learn more about you and who you are and the impact that you've made in the sector over our conversation today. So why don't we start off by you telling us where you are at this moment and what your artistic practice is? My name is Wafa Bigasim. I am based in Tunisia now. I am French Tunisian and my art practice, I'm not a practicing art, I am supporting arts. I am an archaeologist by training, but I spend all my career learning how to mobilize resource for cultural creative sector and to apply it after to my sector, which I did over the last 15 to 16 years and I came back to Tunisia after working here and there between Asia and Africa, learning fundraising and resource mobilization. Then I came back in 2014, 16 and started Culture Funding Watch, which is a company based in Tunisia, but we work on both regions, Mina and Africa. My work consists of working basically on three pillars, democratizing access to information about resources for the cultural creative industries. Second, supporting accessing to this resource and supporting accesses, accessing sustainability for cultural creative actors. And the third, it's advocating and influencing for more smart and sustainable, I call it financial policies for cultural creative industries on my continent. So this is very quickly what are the three main pillars we work under CFW. Wonderful. Before we dive a little bit deeper into sort of our ideological conversation about the arts and sustainability across the African continent, I'd love to talk a little bit more about you. So you said you're an archaeologist by profession. Can you tell us a little bit about how your interest in the arts changed and evolved over the years to get you to do what you're doing now? And you also mentioned traveling across Asia and Africa. So I'd love to hear more about that and how if you could share some of your travel experiences and how they impacted your work. Sure. So I studied in Tunisia until my time I wasn't yet masters, but it's equivalent of master in history and archaeology. Then I moved to France to study archaeology. So I started my day off before because of my time. It's much more different. And then I did my day off plus I started my thesis. And I ended up working for the Supreme Council of Politicalities in Egypt following an internship there. And where I come from Tunisia on my time under the dictatorship, we don't even we have no idea of what is it out there. We have no connection to the outward no cooperation, no partnerships, no international projects. So that whole word I just discovered is suddenly when I moved to Egypt and it's a larger scale, like I went from nothing to wall in the international cooperation, international big international fund and program funding. And then I realized that we don't learn how to do it properly because as much as it was really good to see that a lot of big things are possible in Egypt. I've seen a lot of how to put it in a nice words, a lot of opportunistic approaches to art development and international cooperation. So I said that if we coming from the cultural creative industry, we don't learn that skill very quickly, we will be over like put aside by people who just know how to write proposals. But they don't even know what what are the needs of the sector, what are the right project to put in place. So I put on hold my I completely changed career, I decided to learn fundraising, I said, Okay, I start doing it actually naturally, because when I was working with my Egyptian boss, and I joined their program, it was a Finnish Egyptian cooperation project, a huge one. It was creating the GIS system for all heritage sites in Egypt. And I was worried, I told him, but the funding is soon over, what's gonna happen to the work we're doing, how we're going to continue that. And he just looked at me and he said, you know, Wafa, you know, you're a nosy girl, you dig things and you like to find out. I still had a money budget for a six month young professional figure out how to do that, figure out how to secure resources for the project. And this is how I discovered I really started with Google. Google was my first teacher in fundraising. And I didn't know that it was called fundraising, you know, I was just learning and gradually after six months, I realized that it's a whole profession, there is something you could learn. And there are lots of you can write strategies. And I was lucky enough to apply, I don't know, if you know them, the Resource Alliance, it's one of the biggest professional network of fundraiser. And I applied for a scholarship to attend, I think it was the first court of international fundraising workshop, it was in Malaysia at that time. And I wrote, I was told that I wrote so nice and good motivation letter that when I arrived there, they're waiting for me as an RCU wants to see you. Because I really wrote it from the heart, I was saying, I need to learn that to protect my sector, because we'll be working with people who just know how to write proposal. And that's not correct. That puts the heritage and jeopardy that's wasted, wastes money and resources. So and from there, I came back and I tried to study as much as I can. And my time, it was, you know, fundraising, it doesn't even exist in trends. So don't speak about it in Tunisia. My father is a university teacher and he's up till now and able to understand my job. So can you imagine how to find the work like learning? And I couldn't so afford to go in the United States and the UK to learn fundraising. So the closest to the study was an MBA. I did an MBA and I was lucky enough to right after that find a job at the European Commission. And I mean, all my jobs after that were really calculated towards building my skills. So the EU was the best school to learn from the most complex institutional funders and the number one funder in the world. So I worked for them in finance and contract. So I learned as much as they could. And the funny is that there is a really nice sub. I have a really amazing memories with the EU because when I applied for the job, they looked at me and the jury, they said, you're overqualified because I applied for secretary. I didn't mind. I was saying, even if it's a cleaning lady, first respect, it's a job like another. But I just want to put the food in that institution. And I will do a great job. Just let me read the archives. So it can read what are the willing proposals, bad proposals, not bad proposals. So my boss has told me, you're overqualified. We are worried you won't stay. And I said, I give you my women's word, I would stay. But I asked for 10 minutes of your time every day to teach me something about funding and grants within the EU. And that was the case over two years. So I learned really well. And after that, I applied with Oxfam because I said, I need to work for those who do it from the other side, like the grant seeker. So and they do it very well. And again, I think that I was, I have a good car by that time. And I was selected by Oxfam to be the original funding coordinator in West Africa. And from there, I moved with many different other international organization as a funding professional in South Africa, in Laos, in Myanmar and Niger. And then I said, that's enough, I learned. And now I have to apply this to the, those skills, those techniques to the cultural creative sector. And my dream now is to transfer this to, I dream of creating a new generation of people with art background and they learn this skill. I don't want it for people coming from other backgrounds and then just to fundraising because the mindset is completely different. If I might say, for example, when you're writing a budget or a proposal, there is always a stretch between what you really want to do and the limitation of the budget. And the choice you make at that moment, it will be guided by your subconscious and your primary preferences. So when you come from the art, your tendency will not will go through cutting everything else, but not the essence of your project. But when your background is not that your choices are different. I'm not saying these are bad or these are good, but that's how you function. So this is my mission now is to democratize access to resources, creating spaces and most importantly, recruiting and encouraging people to invest and support the sector. You know, very, very ambitious. And as an artist myself, also very necessary in, in our, in our world today, I think for the African continent at large, all eyes are on us in terms of the kind of work we are producing at this very moment, given the global landscape, but funding isn't necessarily directed towards that resources wise. So it's really inspiring and humbling to hear you speak about both empowering a generation and the next generation of artists to be able to fundraise for themselves, but then also thinking about democratization of resources, you know, at large. So, you know, before we dive a little bit more deeper into that, allow me to just say that our Facebook and our other links where we're streaming this are open for our audiences to ask questions. So if you do have any questions as this conversation moves forward, please put them in the comments and in the chats and we'll be sure to get to them, you know, during the course of this hour time that we have with each other. So I'd love to learn. So you spoke a little bit about your education and how masters wasn't really a thing while you were studying and, and how a lot of the experience from what I hear that you got is very practical and very hands on. For our young people, could you speak a little bit more to the importance of having an education versus having practical experience? What do you say is more important in the arts or and why? I actually, if you look, I have actually four master degrees. And I always, I always like studying and working at the same time. I think it's both, it's not either or both are important. But however, I have a lot of juniors on my team and ask an advice is where to start when to start the master or when to do an MBA. And I was saying, you know, when you are 22 or 23, you don't really know what you want. So take a job, do things work, because that you can come back anytime you want to take your first degree first, and then do things, try and test, you know, I, I discovered my real passion at 34. So I completely shifted career at 31 when I discovered this before that, I was 100% an archaeology heritage, different master degrees and that, but it's really in 31 when I realized that that's fundraising that I want to do. So I think it's good to have one first diploma because I'm not, I think I come from a mid-class family and I know we all don't have this luxury of not having a backup plan. So I would advise have a backup plan, and then start working, experimenting, testing and never say this is not something that I'm not interested in, because when I look back now, and it's funny, and everything that I did, even at student job, ended up related to what I'm doing now, or there is a skill that I did when, that I'm using now. For example, when I was student, so first master degree in France, I worked for an intellectual property company. That's just a receptionist, like in summertime, I was just replacing everybody there that is taken holiday. So the receptionist, the copy pair, the copy room guy, the documentalist, and I worked for them for two years. And I learned a lot. I mean, because, you know, after two years, you learn stuff, so they give you more responsibility. I ended up taking the, how to say, the request for patents and registration on the institute and likely property in France, me. So I learned, I had this sensitivity to the importance of intellectual property. But now I work in cultural creative industry, and it's the cultural creative industry, it's backbone is intellectual property. So it helped me a lot. Same when I was student in Tunisia, I was just selling books for a big distribution book company, but what's fundraising if it's partly also marketing and sale. So do both take time to learn and try different jobs. And then go back to study when you have a little bit of skills, and we know a little bit what you want to do. Too much of, I mean, too much of diplomas with no experience, it's useless. It's used with no practice, it's really, it's not useless, but what I'm saying in terms of employability, it will not help you a lot. Secure whether in the arts or somewhere else. Right, right. So a balance of both in terms of experience is important. Exactly. Great. Maybe we can shift a little bit to talking about some of the stuff that you mentioned earlier as you were speaking about the cultural sector and thinking about funding and thinking about various models. The Middle East and North Africans, the MENA region has been seen as very different than Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Africa. From your experience, could you speak a little bit about what funding looks like in these spaces? Is it different? What is the other efforts that are continuously still made to bring these two regions together on the African continent? How have you understood the relationship between the MENA region and Southern Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa over the years? Where to start? There is an increasing gain of interest and connection to the Sub-Saharan part of the continent. There is also an increased empowerment and self-consciousness of, for example, African, I don't find the word, really Sub-Saharan African descendants in Tunisia. There is now a lot of awareness about how racism is still present in Tunisia. But parallel, there is a lot of, it's a trendy now to talk about Africa and Tunisia, but you find two attitudes or, this is how what I feel, two attitudes or two motivations. One is genuine, like discovering the continent, discovering back to the roots to who we are. But there is also, I feel there is also a lot of neocolonialist approach to it again. It's the Africa again as a market, our share from Africa and I hate to hear that, really I hate it. Do you speak, sorry, just to interrupt you real quick, could you give us a little bit more context about what you mean when you say neocolonialist relationship for our viewers that may not know? Yeah, in the discourse, it's really talking about like invading or like, it's not invading, but I conquer and I was interviewed at one time with the Virgin, how women entrepreneurs to conquer the African market. And I said, the word conquer means that you are an outsider, but how can I conquer my own country? Like for me, Africa is my country. I don't conquer my own continent, so I'm in it. So that's the discourse, like I feel like some not everybody are looking their interest or motivation towards reconnecting to the sub-Saharan part of the continent is really just economic and what is it like? What is the economic gain? Like it's a market taking out share of it. And I really don't like this approach, especially if you remember, I mean, everybody, remember everybody knows our history as an Amina region and our big role in the slave trade. And that's something we don't talk too much about it, but we should be ashamed about it. And I think you know that up to now, the Arab League has never officially apologized about the role that the Arab world has in the slave trade. So that's something that bothers me, but unfortunately, not all the interests in the Amina region are with this mindset. Lots of are really genuine, at least if we talk of North African, genuine, reconnecting, genuine, how to say, revisiting our history and our identity. And that's also really nice, really good. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even the history of the Arab slave trade in Eastern Africa, which is actually older than the West African slave trade is one that is less, less recognized, but had had severe effects on culture and cultural export and even finding materials, finding artifacts and museums abroad now as opposed to here. There are some drastic consequences as we all know on both sides. And the Arab world is less recognized for those impacts. But again, as you say, there's a positive wave of change in the direction of celebrating culture across the region, the continent. The other thing that has oftentimes come up and as somebody who has lived and been brought up in a formerly British colonized country and who also grew up speaking French, there's always been this really interesting question about the language and the neocolonialist relationship of language. For me, I feel very fortunate that I'm able to speak both English and French because it brings the region much closer to me. But could you speak a little bit more about how language affects relationships in the minor region within the region? Because of course, French is not the only language spoken there. And then also with the rest of the African continent. Within the minor region, there is a unity because we all speak Arabic. Even if there are different dialects, there is one unifying language. It's a classical Arabic which everybody talks and everybody understands. There are some dialects that we don't understand among each other. For example, I think when I was working in Egypt, I had my Egyptian colleagues, when they want to laugh, they asked me to call my mom and speak in Chinese because it said I can speak Arabic. But with the African continent, up to recently, after the revolution, there was a big divide with the English-speaking part of the African continent because Tunisia was really Francophone and Arabophone. The English was really very few people could talk and use it as a business language or interaction language. But it has changed a lot since the revolution. And I can say the trend now is the opposite because when I see around me, my nephews, my nieces, they must have more English than French now. Though, yeah, they understand. So I think the fact that we are basically trial and rule in Tunisia, that helps a lot now in our relationship with the rest of the African continent. But again, I think there is also a mis-information, a lack of information about the continent and the local languages of the continent because I'm quite sure. I've been in Tanzania and I tell you, I could understand 70% of Swahili because it's lots of Arabic words. So I think again, so if there are now a more cultural exchange and more effort to know each other, I think it's going to be easy for Tunisian to learn in Swahili. And Swahili is spoken by a large part of the African continent. So it could be another bridge with other parts of the continent. Yeah, and it's really empowering to think that this is a language that is ours that connects us as opposed to a language like English or French that we inherited from our history. I was speaking to a friend the other day and we were talking about the impact and the importance of the Swahili language in East Africa, but also how in itself as a language, it is so inclusive because the language itself was created because of a combination of Portuguese and Hindi and Arabic and English and all of these coming together and if they made a baby, that baby is Kiswahili. So I mean, yes, it could be a nationalizing effort and Tanzania is a very interesting case study for that because of its history of using language or lingua franca as a way of nationalizing the arts and politics. A couple of really interesting performing historians like Kelly Esquiu who write about this very, very much throughout their research. So let's talk a little bit more about the creative sector as a whole. I'm going to start off with a very vague question. What would you say are the key things that we need as Africans in this moment to build sustainable creative economies across the continent? It's a big question, trying to answer it in five minutes. Many, like get rid of the visa things within the continent. Free movement of people, goods and services. So we have now our free trade areas. So we need to work hard all together to make it more adapted, more effective and make it happen really on the ground. So that there is a lot of hope there. But related to that also it's the, I have to say, awareness. We really need to know more each other. There is really still a little content actually, like vulgarized documents about knowing what, writing new stories, changing new perceptions of the rest of the continent. Now there is like this now with this big movement about new narratives about the African continent. But I think there are a hundred other individual stories that need to be told. And I think among the own community. For example, in Tunisia, when I, before like 10 years ago, when I come back and people ask me, why you live in Mali or you live in Niger? How is it? It's like, whoa, malaria. I said, you know, there are so tiny, small things, but they build crazy imaginary and wrong perception. And I was like, you listen, malaria, it's just like a flu. People die of malaria. It's not because the disease is bad. It's because people don't have access to, to medicines, don't have access to medical support, don't have access to very quick early diagnosis of this. And I got it twice and I'm okay. So, and another thing is, or sometimes people ask you, yeah, how do you feel about the education or the, I said, people are surprised because I said my mentors, the people who really taught me are Senegalese. I want one Malian lady and two Senegalese guys. These are my teachers. I learned that people are surprised to know that there are that kind of level of knowledge and expertise in the continent. I'm talking 10 years ago. Now, of course, people know better the continent, but still I think there are, I think if we're not, we want to win this battle of the new narrative about the continent, it should be individual stories. It should be people-to-people stories because it stalks more to, to us. It relates us more than just taking a success story of someone. I think it's, it's, I think it's people like me who have ties to the African continent, who has lived. I mean, I feel more African than Mina thing, but I think we have the, the responsibility to tell those stories. I think that's, that's one thing important that we are responsible for. Yeah. How would you, so for producers and for folks that are present, presenters of some of these stories, how would you, I find that there's a big challenge at this moment where Africans are not able to see other African people's work. Because of these neocolonial ties, oftentimes a lot of this cultural export, so to speak, travels abroad for it to get international recognition. And yet if it's presented at an international theater festival somewhere on the African continent, it's not given the same sort of precedence. It's not even the same sort of prestige as if it went to Broadway, for example. What do you think is the best way for us as Africans to think about how we can present work towards each other or work to each other on the continent? And what recommendations would you have for, for producers and presenters in this regard? I think it's happening. I believe now things are moving. I mean, there are more big, but I think it's all about making notes. I think it's all about being strategic when we do it. Like, if we decide all together to make that event or that festival something, then make noise about it at the same time together. I think it's about making too much, much more noise. And being a little bit militant. But I think part of the problem, it's not only the will or lack of will or some kind of complex of inferiority also. We have this, even within our own mind, we have this complex. It's important to be, I don't know, in Cannes. But I think that's a problem that exists even within the same countries. It's always what comes from outside or from abroad and more particularly from the northern hemisphere of the globe. It's always more valorized than a local thing happening here. But I think our capacity to reverse that beside our changing our own main sign, being solidary to each other and making much more noise is also working on resources. And also it's a, there must be an awareness from investors and art support and in government that invest in that. Like, go massively support that. I can mention, for example, an example in Tunisia, and it's a pity, we had yesterday the first film in Tunisia history to run in Anuskar, which was a nominee. The man who sold his skin is a Tunisian film. But the noise that was done about it in our country is only by mainly, by the creative people, or less by institutions. And that's something we need to really work on all together. So I do believe that the change in more, putting more value on events or on things happening on the continent, I think it's in motion now. I think it's happening. It's coming. It's just a matter of time. I think it's few years now we're taking over. Yeah, the wave is there and it's already started to gain momentum. You mentioned a really interesting and stimulating thing about institutional support. And I guess it links back to what you were saying earlier about new narratives and new stories coming out of the continent that we need to see instead of the regular malaria and HIV and AIDS and terrorism and all of these things. The trauma porn, so to speak, as people like to say sometimes. However, I believe and feel that there are a lot of funding resources from abroad still that perpetuate or come with limitations of what kind of narratives need to be presented. How would you recommend one to navigate trying to apply to some of these big funders that are funding a majority of the work, whilst also still being able to maintain a level of independence and artistic agency over the work that we're producing? Yeah. There is no recipe, but there is a strategy for that. And thank you for asking this question because it's a recurring question that people ask CFW when they reach out to us. And I say to make it simple is reaching that level of balance between your independency and the external, your external resource of funding. It's in your ability to put seeds, sustainability is small seeds put here and there at different stage and in different time of your life as an organization or collective of artists or an enterprise. So the problem is most of the cases we operate on project basis. So when you have an idea, you develop the idea and then you look for funding for it. Very few had a resource mobilization strategy before. You have to strategize to be able to reach that level of balance. So you think where you want to go, what is it that you wanted to achieve? You think the project that you want to do, but at the same time you're thinking of income streams or the resources. I prefer the word resource because what you need, it's not only money or your need can be satisfied, not only through grants or sometimes, you know, there are other resources that are available to help you reach your goal or realize your project that are even better than grants. Very simple example. Right. I was just going to ask you, can you give us an example? The mindset is, okay, I want to develop a platform to showcase female singers on the African continent. So the most majority of us would think, okay, I write a proposal, I get a grant to do it or I get to support financial support to do it. But I would say no because what does it mean that the effort, writing a proposal, negotiating the project, implementing narrative reports, financial reports, audits, invoices, cans, sending, justifying, it's a lot of effort. While if you break down what you want to do into needs, what I need, I need this website, I need the communication material. So and I look what are the resources out there that could help me satisfy those needs. For example, there are supports in form of technical assistance. So the technical assistance is an international cooperation program or institution that offer not money, but you just tell them, this is what I need. And then they will get the expert or the company and they pay it. So what you do in the case, this example here, you just write the TOR, I want the platform in three languages, I want it to be able to showcase this and I want this language. And you just send it to them. And you agree, you got, and then they will find the expert for you, they put you in touch, that expert who will create all the company will develop that platform for you and you're out of the hassle and they will pay him. So you're out of all this effort, but you still satisfy your needs. So I'm not saying that all your needs can be satisfied through the grant, but you can break down your need on different resources because some of them are much more interesting than England. So to gain that balance between depending on donor, it's your capability to, from the first, from the beginning, strategize to mix those tools and to balance and to have a variety. Of course, when you start and you're in the beginning of your career or when you are an innocent organization or an NGO, of course, you're not able to reach that level of diversification of resource. But what is important is that you work towards that. That, okay, if the year one you are dependent and are on one donor and on a grant, that's fine, we all start there. But where is the problem is when you get stuck there. And that's the problem with every most of us in the sector is we think about the next resource when this one is dried and you don't even have time to think and strategize, you don't have choice. So you keep that. I'm not saying this is the ideal, but this is not a recipe or whatever I'm trying to say. It's just this is an approach that we use. And I keep also advising our clients or the people we work with. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Sorry for having to turn my video off in between. I was in the middle of just making sure everything's okay. Thank you. So just to build off of that, sorry, okay, just to build off of that, sorry. So for a new company in Africa or somewhere on the continent, if I were to start something, oops, sorry, if I were to start something and it was a team of about three people, let's say you have a producer and you have an artistic director and you have one other managing person. And I was trying to figure out a financial model that was sustainable for me to create the kind of work that I want to create. Could you speak a little bit more or what advice would you have for smaller companies like this? Because I've often noticed even in my own contexts that I have folks and friends coming to me for advice or to talk more about how to build something a little bit more sustainable. So what advice would you have for a small company in terms of how to imagine a financial model that's sustainable and not reliant on external donor funding? For that, with CFW, we have developed the tool that we call SAP tool. SAP stands for SAD. SAP, S is for in French, that means knowledge. A for AVOA, that means to have a P for code that means to produce. And the idea is to take them through and reflect on their collective or company. What are the things or the knowledge, the things they own or the product they have, they can become an income stream and work on diversification of income stream. So my advice is work from the start, not necessarily that all of these incomes will generate resources in year one, but you build them because there are some that get ready after a certain time. And I like a lot using example metaphors from the agriculture sector because these people are really wise. So an agriculture in our country, what did they do? They plant seeds that grow and are ready in different seasons of the year, so that in every season they have a harvest. For example, in my country, the olive tree, the olive trees fields in between trees, they plant almond trees. So they have two different seasons, two products. And down the element, they put beans. And so they have three times a year incomes too. So it's not that you are going to have resource coming from different income stream at the same time, but one can give you right now, but the other use plant these seeds because it's going to be ready in year two, once your grant of your one will be over. So my advice is from the start, work on having resources that come from an expertise you have that could become a product or could become sometime they can exchange, not necessarily gain fees, but you can exchange about something, have developed services. And I understand some artists, some companies have choices and said, no, I don't want to do something else or I don't want to develop this, that understandable, but at least you have to be aware of the risk you are taking. And it depends on the context. For example, that would work in Tunisia right before and I think now much a little bit less in the revolution. For example, for the theater, before the revolution, if you are of course aligned with the politics of the government, and you have a little bit of talent because the government was extremely and heavily subsidizing theater work. But if you are out from, if you are angry or they are angry at you, it's really hard to survive if you don't develop other services and other income streams. So this is to say that the problem of dependency does not only relates to international donor. If you are in a hostile context, it's important to diversify, at least until this situation changed. So if I have an advice, work on diversifying the IP, of course in our countries in the continent, it's not yet that strong income stream intellectual property, but I think it's soon with the digitalization, with the new technology coming in. It's soon something that would help. Yeah, yeah, there's an increasing movement towards building royalty models and building models that protect the intellectual property of our artists because that's not even something some of us think about. Would you just say that it's unrealistic to rely on governments and nation-state funding for us? Or would you say that it comes, but it comes at a cost just as you were saying earlier? It's not that, it's like, it depends on which context. So it can be risky in context when you are under a dictatorship programs. So the risk is the same, whether you become dependent to international donor or your government. So it's not unrealistic, but it's risky. And you have to be aware that you've taken that risk. I understand some people would say I wasn't willing to take that risk because I stand for some value and I understand because access or funding art and culture, it's a human right. So I am not saying here that when I say try to diversify or try to have other income streams, I'm not saying that government should stop subsidizing support is the opposite. I'm a fervent and a very aggressive supporter of the role of the state in because they consider its basic service to be provided to citizens so that the role of the state to make sure that every citizen has access to art and culture. However, depending also in them, it's sometimes risky or unrealistic in the case that when you are in a context where the economy is not that strong, governments, our government don't have that much money to fund every single thing. You have to be realistic about that, even if they want. And now with this context of the COVID and the crisis, it's getting more and more difficult for them, even with the good will to compete against other state ministries, because what we tend to forget is your Ministry of Culture is in competition with other ministry when they pitch the government the state budget every year. So they are in many times really in a weak position and they don't fund you sometimes not because they don't want, but because they are armless against depends on which government it's in place and other ministries. Right. So again, it kind of goes back to what you're saying about even if there was government support, there has to be a sustainable sort of model that includes a wide range and various resources of funding. I want to pivot a little bit to some of the programming that CFW, Culture Funding Watch does. You mentioned SAP, but would love to hear more for our viewers what other programming you offer and how people can get involved if they're interested in pursuing this more on the African continent and abroad. Thank you. So the first thing that CFW offer is access to information. So on our platform, we sort, we summarize and we publish for free every single call, opportunity, residencies, grant, paper, any resource on our website. So CultureFundingWatch.com you can access it. The second thing is, as I said, we have a very few fundraisers specialized in fundraising or resource mobilization for the art and culture. And then we are training, providing training and apprenticeship program to, I hope to build the next, to prepare the next generation of specialized fundraisers for the creative sector and the continent. The third pillar we work on is connecting, creating spaces where funders and supporters from the continent and where contacts and being connection and meet these, the art and culture people from our continent. And we do that through two main things. One is our new platform, the cciboost.com, which is a platform that connect all year long the culture creative, whether it is independent or NGO or an enterprise with funders, investors and with the community itself. So on the platform, you can enter with the profile as entrepreneur or an NGO, but we also, we are recruiting business angels, investments, donors to register with the profile of art supporter. And these people can find each other on the platform because some funders and investors don't function with the calls, they don't issue calls, they just headhunt. So we want to make it easy for them and help these, when you create your profile as an entrepreneur or a freelance artist or an NGO in the art, you have a profile you become visible to the whole community and to these investors. Besides the cciboost, so you can register. And by the way, now the first, we are selecting the best, we are opening call for joining the cciboost to be able to select the best 50 projects in cultural, cultural creative sector in a worldwide to provide them with the free booths during the online big meet up we are organized and made. And now I'm talking to you about the RM Digiton. The RM Digiton, it's one, we hope one, maybe one every year or one every two years, we invite in a virtual meeting art and culture supporter from all over the world to meet with you, art and culture people from all over the world in a speed meeting of format, but it's reversed. It's not you pitching your projects the other way around. This funder will be explaining to you what they fund, what they support, the eligibility, the deadline, how to access. And we will be offering every attendee in the event a minimum of four meet meetings, speed meetings. So you attend the event and you can sit in three speed meeting, four speed meeting rounds and listen of your choice because we send the catalog and you choose the tables of the hosts you prefer to meet with. And the event is on the 26th of May. It's for free. Please register because the deadline for registration, I'm going to write it here. The deadline for registration is the 30th of April. So still few days, five days to register. This is the CCI booth. So here to register to win a free booth during this event. So the donor when they finish, they will have time to walk around because as I said, in the speed meeting, you won't have the time to pitch. But when you have the booth, the donor when they finish their round, they can come and see on the booth your pitch deck. They can talk to you on one to one. They can run for meeting even beyond the event. So the idea is really to make it accessible. We used to do it in Tunisia and face to face, but the COVID gave us this idea of a virtual big make up. So the Aran Digipan. So go and this is the site. And up to now there are 1001,000 attendees. And there are over around 70 funders from many countries from some are international donors. They give everywhere some are country or region focus. We're trying. This is the first edition. So we hope the next one will much more bigger. And the nice thing also about this event, it's just 24 hours. So between the speed meeting, you can meet. It allows people to meet each other. So there is a lot of networking. Imagine 1000 people and the platform allows you to bump in anyone and have a one to one chat. Who are you? What do you do? And even the booths are also an opportunity to find partners because people may think or may be looking for partners for a project or for an application. So we're trying to, this is what we do. The most core, sole mission of Cultural Funding Watch is really to connect and facilitate access to resources. Thank you so much for sharing this. I hope that some of our viewers will be able to join and sign up because it seems like a wonderful, wonderful, I'll be there. So it seems like a wonderful opportunity for folks to connect and network. I don't believe that there are any questions from our Facebook or other live stream panels. So I guess I'll end us with our, thank you for that website also. I guess I'll end us with our final question, which is actually directed towards young people. It's really inspiring again to hear about the apprenticeship program and to hear about opportunities for the next generation to start thinking about these, you know, intersections between the arts and other fields. What advice would you have for a young producer like myself, for example, that's still sort of breaking into the field to do during this time, to keep the practice alive and to think about a career similar to yours? In terms of what, like a project? What advice would you, well, what advice would you have for a young person who might come up to you and say, how do I break into this field? What do I start doing? What do I, what's the first, what can I think about doing? Okay, I always, I just, I said it earlier, think about what do you need to realize what you want to do. Don't think I need money to do. I know we need money, you need salary, but start because, you know, our field, it's about investing in it a little bit from the beginning. I can give you the example of the RMB how it started. You know that the RMB, we never had the funding for it. We've done this zero funding, its own resource. What I did is I looked around, I did my mapping the first edition, the one-to-one face-to-face. Instead of looking for a grant, I found a solution that even better. I looked around me and said, what is the festival in Tunisia that would be interested in me organizing one kind of session in that festival? And then I heard there is a new team coming in and the International Theater Festival of Tunis and I reached out to this guy and I said, okay, listen, don't give me money. I have this idea. I wanted to develop a non-intestive, I have the network and I have everything I can do, what I need, a big room and I need three flight tickets and a hotel room for three international guests. And I will do everything as, don't worry, the program, the Tunisian funders and supporter and everything. And he said yes. So what I did, I had my event done three times. I don't need anything at the opposite. I didn't have to deal with flight booking, hotel, payment, proposal report. I went out of that and I got my, of course, it was small. It wasn't as big as I want. I mean, if I had money, I would have done something big, but I scaled down my ambition and dealt with my reality. At that time, I was small. Nobody knows CFW. Nobody understands what I'm talking about. And then, okay, let's do small, start there. So I didn't give up. My dream was big. So I didn't give up my idea, but I adapted to the reality. If I keep asking for 20,000 euros to make it happen the way I want it to happen, what will happen? But I know now where we are. We are in 1,000 online events. And the three editions, no funding. The same, it's in kind contribution. This time, it's only me who I paid the platform with my own, that CFW income. But other of that, it's done. What I did, I reached out to partners, other art people around the world. I said, oh, hi, I have this crazy idea. What do you think? I don't have money. Can you help? And people help. Just the power of connections, right? That's just, again, another alternative way of thinking about it. So yeah, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And scale down your ambition and embrace or match up to the reality. I mean, out of the context, or in the context that you've said it, it's really, really powerful because it just reminds us to accept the reality that we're in and think about how we can make things happen either way because things can still keep happening. Just as we wrap up, how can people get in touch? Or how can people follow you? Thank you for sharing the websites. We'll put those on Facebook. But is there a way for us to sign up for your newsletter or anything like that? Yeah. So on LinkedIn, you can join me with this spelling. But CFW, please register to the newsletter because we send every beginning of the month, the list of all that many others does. But we also inform about all the other things we are doing, like the CCI booth, the RMBG phone, and many, many other things we're definitely going to do. And also, please register to the CCI booth. It will be part of that community. The CCI booths have much more functionality than just connecting with funders because it's being developed. It will contain a toolbox, a section called the toolbox, where we try to negotiate for the community of the CCI booths, tools that are with huge discounts. For example, nowadays, when you start whatever, it's business or an NGO, a pro version of Zoom or something on virtual, it's necessary. You can't work only with the free version. You can be kept from the Zoom every 45 minutes. So we try to reach out to this, like for example, Zoom, people are saying, okay, listen, this community, you're losing them anyway, because they don't have access, they don't have mean to. So can you do a discount to the CCI booth? So everyone that owns the CCI booth will have it with a huge discount. So we're trying to do that with many different tools, like intellectual property registration with the blockchain, these kinds of things. So that's the kind of things that we are trying to work on on the next phase of the CCI booth. This is all wonderful and super exciting. Yeah, yeah, Facebook as well. Oh, excuse me. Oh, gee, sorry about that. Yeah, thank you. Excuse me, I'm going to go and treat myself now. But thank you so much for all those that, you know, listened in. And thank you so much, Rafa, for your time and for sharing so many thoughtful insights. The conversation just begins here really. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners and viewers will be excited to continue following the work of Culture Funding Watch. I know I definitely want to follow up with you and have another conversation about a lot of the things you've talked about. So thank you so much for your time and for your wisdom this hour. Thank you for inviting me. It was really, really a pleasure. And I hope you will have the opportunity to do much more things in the future. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And before we end today, excuse me, before we end today, I just want to thank our ASL interpreters, Rory and Zina. Thank you so much for reinterpreting the entire conversation for us in a different language. Really, really appreciate it. Yeah, we'll be back with you all next week for episode nine. Same time, same place and cat and hopefully a little bit better than I am today. But yeah, we'll catch you next week with a new panelist. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Bye-bye. Good evening. Thank you. Bye.