Deadline: 30-Oct-23
The Supporting Effective Dispute Resolution (SEDR) invites talented local arts curators, arts organisations, creative collaborators, and CSOs/NGOs to join them in a ground-breaking Arts for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) programme, called Arts-4-ADR.
The European Union (EU) has contracted the British Council to deliver the Supporting Effective Dispute Resolution project (hereafter SEDR) in Sri Lanka over five years from 2020-2025. SEDR is funded by the European Union and the project is one element of the EU’s wider Strengthening Transformation, Reconciliation, and Inclusive Democratic Engagement (STRIDE) programme.
Arts & Alternative Dispute Resolution can allow for an enabling environment to be created and for the participation of people of all abilities and backgrounds, arts-led initiatives working with the grain of local culture and traditions can play a pivotal role as a creative medium for community-based alternative dispute resolution.
Arts and Culture can contribute to alternative dispute resolution processes by:
- Using imaginative strategies, devices and solutions collaboratively to address the specific challenges faced by marginalised communities and raise awareness/understanding of the root causes of conflict/disputes/grievances, as well as locally available ADR mechanisms.
- Building the capacity and agency of arts practitioners to facilitate dialogue and engagement with target communities/audiences around ADR themes.
- Providing arts practitioners with the opportunity to represent the lived experiences of marginalised groups and local communities through language, music and cultural practices.
Objectives
- Through this grant, SEDR seeks to contribute to an Overall Objective of strengthening social cohesion in the project’s target communities.
- Proposals from prospective partners should contribute towards delivering the following three Specific Objectives of the Arts-4-ADR project, namely:
- to facilitate dialogue regarding root causes of community-based conflict/disputes/grievances,
- to increase awareness and understanding of community-based ADR mechanisms, and
- to encourage the use of ADR mechanisms as pathways to access justice, through art-for-social development approaches.
- Proposals should target arts practitioners, women, young people (those aged 18-35), and marginalised groups and clearly indicate how they will participate in project activities and what benefits will flow to them.
Funding Information
- Through this Call for Proposals SEDR will award one grant (covering all three target provinces and Colombo) of up to the value of EUR 100,000, for project proposals of up to 12 months in duration.
Eligibility Criteria
- To be eligible to apply for this SEDR grant, applicants must fulfil all the following criteria:
- Have preferably five years’ experience in successful delivery of relevant artistic practice, and/or arts-for social development initiatives and/or strengthening social cohesion in Sri Lanka.
- Have a strong track record relevant to the specific proposal to be funded (i.e., of similar type, location, value, and scale) in Sri Lanka.
- Clear evidence of partnership-working and collaboration with the arts and creative sector, state, and non-state actors.
- Have, or agree to have, a Sri Lanka-based bank account that requires two signatures, if the applicants bid is successful.
- Have sufficient financial policies and controls in place to ensure transparent, responsible, and accountable use of funds.
- Submission of audited financial statements of past two years of operation.
- Only one application per lead organisation is permissible. Applications from a consortium or alliance of organisations are welcome but must demonstrate prior consultation and agreement of such partnership.
Additional Requirements
- One or more local Arts curator, Arts organisation, Arts collaboration, CSO and/or NGO, can apply together as partners. SEDR will sign a Grant Agreement with only one organisation as the lead implementing partner. The lead organisation is responsible for achieving the project results, managing funds, reporting requirements and management of any provincial implementation partners.
- Prospective partners are invited to propose new projects ideas/concepts, or they may propose to continue or scale-up existing initiatives with has a strong track record of success.
- Proposals should ideally follow a Three-plus-One (3+1) Model: three sets of activities uniquely delivered in each of SEDRs target provinces, the most prominent elements of which are then showcased in Colombo culminating in an exhibition/series of events to ensure exposure of and access to the outputs for audiences in the capital and an opportunity for them to engage with provincial artists and their unique work.
- Proposals should seek to incorporate interdisciplinary arts approaches, digital/social media solutions, and dialogic methods to curate inventive and creative programmes aimed at delivering the Specific Objectives.
- Prospective partners are encouraged to utilise the Facilitator Guide: Facilitating Dialogue for Critical Engagement with Art produced by the Strengthening Reconciliation Processes (SRP) in Sri Lanka project (published by GIZ in 2022) to design and deliver capacity building workshops and training programmes for selected local arts practitioners, to enable and empower them to develop their skills and knowledge of critical engagement and facilitation of dialogue with audiences, using the Arts.
- Proposals should contain a strong element of recording and documenting the process how the art initiatives are conceptualised, produced and delivered, with an emphasis on archiving and generating evidence of what works.
- All documentation material and outputs including videos, short films, audio visual materials, podcasts, scripts and screen plays, should be in local languages, inclusive of appropriate language subtitles.
- Proposals should consider how creative outputs from the three provinces could be shared islandwide, before or after the Colombo event, and incorporate strategies for traditional media outreach of their initiatives to ensure for greater public exposure of their proposed initiatives.
- In line with the 3+1 model, proposals must cover activities in all SEDR’s target districts in each of the three target provinces. These are: Vavuniya & Mannar (Northern Province), Trincomalee & Ampara (Eastern Province), and Badulla & Monaragala (Uva Province). Additional locations in the target provinces may also be included, if well justified. A final concluding exhibition/series of events should take place in Colombo.
- Proposals should incorporate measures to monitor and validate progress of changes in target communities through relevant indicators and targets.
- Applicants must demonstrate understanding of the local community dynamic and context (e.g., conflict legacy, issues of caste, gender, cultural, and religious differences) of SEDR’s target districts in each of the three target provinces and clearly indicate relevant ‘do-no-harm’ approaches, and how their initiatives will mitigate against risks of further conflict.
- Coordination and collaboration with existing EU funded initiatives and/or with other development partner/donor interventions in the target areas is encouraged, the work of the local chapters of the European Union National Institutes of Culture (EUNIC) as well as the EU and GIZ funded Strengthening Social Cohesion & Peace in Sri Lanka (SCOPE) project in particular.
For more information, visit Supporting Effective Dispute Resolution (SEDR).