British Council Supports Creative Industry

The British Council has initiated moves to support the creative industry in Ghana through the Creative Enterprise Support Programme aimed at delivering training, mentoring and support business development of young and emerging entrepreneurs in Ghana.

The programme which will focus on the film industry is going to be delivered by The First Creatives (Ghana), Henley Business School (UK) and Afrinolly Creative Hub (Nigeria) and has been divided into three stages.

The Enterprise Support which is the first stage involves a two-week intensive training for 60 film entrepreneurs which include artistic, technical and enterprise training tailored to the need of the local sector.

The second which is the incubation will involve the selection of 30 film entrepreneurs from the first stage for a 6 – month incubation programme which will provide access to workplace, equipment within the workplace, training, business support and mentoring.

Pitch for Grants being the third stage will be an opportunity for the film entrepreneurs from stage two of the programme to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges whereby there will be grants for 5 film entrepreneurs to develop business plans, start/scale up existing businesses or produce new film projects in Ghana.

At a news conference in Accra, Chikodi Onyemerela, Director of Programmes and Partnerships, British Council indicated that they chose film as the first art of focus because of the insight they got from the film industry considering the market for the industry.

Jean – Pierre Choulet, Director of Development and Alumni, Vice Dean Africa, Henley Business School said their purpose for the programme is to equip the participants with how to build their business, canvas, assess business ideas from a market point of view.

The President of The First Creatives, Jay Engmann in his remark noted that their outfit looks out for creative entrepreneurs and filmmakers to be able to start the new industry which they will not be targeting only Africans living in Africa but those in the diaspora and everybody in general as well.

“It is just about understanding what commercial standards are and understanding what the commercial needs are in story telling which will attract the right production companies to come and offer their resources to us,” he added.

An award-winning British – Ghanaian actress, television presenter and producer, Ama K. Abebrese who is one of the coaches of the programme said the fact that our film industry is not as big doesn’t mean that we should let the quality aspects in producing a film to diminish because quality is what is going to set us apart.

“We are making sure that we are pushing the theory, business aspects and teach them how to navigate not just the Ghana professional space but international professional space because our films right now should be for the world,” she emphasised.