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About the Program

Why Wasl?

In keeping with its dedication to supporting independent cultural organizations against the backdrop of political, social, economic and cultural challenges that hamper the ability of organizations, initiatives and individuals engaged in culture and the arts in the Arab region to achieve their aims, Culture Resource has launched Wasl program. The new program is inspired by the desire to create new spaces for addressing the commonly shared difficulties that obstruct the development of such organizations, initiatives and individuals while remaining sensitive for their particular contextual properties and open to new individual or multilateral experiences.

Wasl program aspires to empower the cultural sector in the Arab region and to build bonds between cultural organizations across this region. Towards these ends, the program promotes networking between independent cultural organizations, strengthens the culture of collaboration and mutual learning between them by supporting collaborative projects with clearly conceived visions and specifically identified objectives, and organizes training workshops that engage the principles and methods of “peer learning.” A more general end is to help generate a critical and effective cultural force to press for the values of freedom of creativity and social justice.

What does Wasl offer?

Seed Funding of 7,000 USD to support a collaborative cultural project between two organizations.
A participatory training workshop.
A one-week working visit for each partner in the city in which the other partner’s organization is located.
Professional accompaniment of the collaboration progress through its various phases. The follow up is performed by a team of cultural managers and specialised trainers.
A set of tools to support the professional and institutional development and the management of the collaborations.
Becoming part of a network of cultural organizations.
A closing networking event in one Arab city.

How does the program work?

Applications are submitted to Culture Resource, proposing a collaborative cross-border cultural project between two cultural organizations from different parts of the Arab region. A jury of recognised professionals in culture and the arts evaluates the applications and selects five projects. Representatives from the partner organizations developing and coordinating these projects are invited to attend a participatory training workshop. The content and delivery of these workshops are developed and carried out by a group of professional trainers in collaboration with the participant organizations. In the next stage, the partners exchange week-long working visits to each other’s partner organizations in order to further develop and carry out their collaborative project. The program concludes with a closing networking meeting in which the partner organizations share their projects and experiences with a broader audience. The program also offers professional accompaniment to support the partners as they steer their project through its various phases.

The Program schedule

Application deadline: 22 October 2018
Application selection process: 1-31 November 2018
Announcement of results: 5 December 2018
First training workshop: February or March 2019
Exchanges of week-long working visits between partners to each other’s countries (or to a third country in which they have chosen to carry out their project for convincing reasons): Between March and December 2019
Closing networking meeting: Late January 2020

How to apply

Read the application guidelines before filling out the form.
Include with the application the required supporting documents (see instructions).
E-mail the completed form and supporting documents to [email protected]

Note: Applications that do not include the required supporting documents or that do not meet the eligibility criteria will be eliminated and will not be submitted to the jury.

For any questions, please contact Wasl team: [email protected]

Application Guidelines

Who is eligible to apply?

This program is open to cultural and artistic organizations funded and directed by artists and/or cultural actors based in Arab countries (regardless of ethnicity and citizenship).
One of the applicant organizations must be a legally registered, mid-size organization. The partner must be an independent cultural and artistic organization and/or initiative, regardless of its size and budget.
The applicant organizations proposing the collaborative project must be from two different countries or two different regions of the same country separated by borders (created, for example, by foreign occupation or political partition) regardless of whether these borders are internationally recognized.
The applicant partner organizations must propose a concept for a joint project that is both original and feasible. It is preferable if the proposed projects are interdisciplinary and aspire to be sustainable.
The application must be signed by the directors of each of the applicant organizations even if the directors, themselves, are not to be the actual participants in the program. Each director is expected to endorse the participation of a member of his/her organization and must commit to supporting that participant through the duration of the program which lasts 15 months.

Note: organizations that are currently benefiting or have previously benefited from the Abbara and Tandem/Shaml programs are encouraged to apply to Wasl program.

Application instructions

Fill in the application form in Arabic and e-mail it with the required attachments to the following address: [email protected].

How are participants selected?

A jury of recognised independent experts will assess the applications in light of the following criteria:

At the level of the organization:

The size of the organization.
The applicant organizations’ ability and motivations for carrying out a collaborative project.
The short and long term impacts of the collaboration on the partner organizations.

At the level of the collaboration:

The relevance of the proposed project to its social/cultural context (to what extent and how will it engage and impact on local communities?).
The quality of the proposed collaboration (originality of concept, innovativeness of approach, feasibility, the cross-border factor).
The quality of the potential outputs of the project.

At the level of the individual applicant:

The potential learning impact on the participant cultural directors/artists, in general and through their proposed working visits.