Mother Tongues & ArtsEkta Secure Funding from The Shared Island Civic Society Fund

01 October 2024

Mother Tongues & ArtsEkta Secure Funding from The Shared Island Civic Society Fund

ArtsEkta and Mothers Tongue Ireland proudly announce their successful bid for funding from The Shared Island Civic Society Fund. This initiative, aimed at fostering practical North-South cooperation, provides vital support to civic society and community organizations, enabling them to strengthen existing partnerships, forge new cross-border connections and champion inclusivity and diversity across the island.

Project Overview: A Journey for Change – Exchanging Intercultural Practices

This cross-border initiative endeavours to:

Create opportunities for artists from migrant and minority ethnic backgrounds to engage in various arts disciplines.
Foster North-South links through networking, co-creation, and cultural exchange.
Establish a framework for artistic collaboration.
Showcase new artwork to audiences in Dublin and Belfast.
Cultivate a lasting cross-border partnership to nurture future employment prospects.

The year-long project consists of:

Artist exchanges in both cities.
A residential Summer School spanning 2 days in Tallaght (hosted by Mother Tongues) and 2 days in Belfast (hosted by ArtsEkta). This immersive experience will culminate in the creation of a new artwork to be shared at the Mother Tongues Festival in Tallaght, Dublin (February 2025), and ArtsEkta in Belfast (August 2025).

Project Partners

Mother Tongues and ArtsEkta share similar values and work to improve the experience of migrants by creating cultural initiatives that enhance everyone’s sense of belonging in their local community.

Founded in 2018, Mother Tongues is a pioneering not-for-profit organisation promoting multilingualism and intercultural dialogue in Ireland. Mother Tongues is the first organisation in Ireland to employ creative arts to support families to embrace their mother tongue & increase confidence in linguistic & cultural identity.

ArtsEkta, established in 2006, works at the grassroots to strengthen and deepen relationships within and between black and minority ethnic (BME) and indigenous communities through a series of exciting, inspiring and innovative cultural and heritage-based programmes