BEMIS Scotland are delighted to announce the opening of our Scotland’s Winter Festivals small grants fund for this year. In 2020/21 we will continue our partnership with the Scottish Government, the Fair Saturday Foundation (Bilbao) and Celtic Connections international music festival to celebrate Scotland’s diverse minority ethnic communities’ citizenship, artistic assets, and talent.
The 2020 programme will focus on St Andrew’s Day ‘Acts of Kindness’ and ‘Artistic Messages to Scotland’.
St Andrew’s Day Acts of Kindness
2020 has been a very difficult year for everyone, and in this adversity, we have witnessed the very best of professional dedication in our NHS and other public services.
In addition, the minority ethnic third sector has mobilised itself in unprecedented fashion to support our communities – often in extremely challenging circumstances – to ensure that support is there for all who need it. It truly has been a rightly diverse collective national effort. In our largest health board, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, where the ethnicity of staff has been self-ascribed by individuals, over 15% of staff were from minority ethnic communities. This indicates the multi-ethnic efforts that are ongoing to keep all of the people of Scotland safe. We want to celebrate this unique effort by the diverse communities and say thank you to all NHS staff for their ongoing commitment and care. We would call on all to utilise St Andrew’s Day as a marked day to showcase such acts of kindness and appreciation. We are opening the small grants fund in this challenging year to help organisations and communities to instigate an ‘Act of Kindness’ in and from their communities. These Acts of Kindness could be directed from communities to their local health service, their broader community or isolated community members. An Act of Kindness can be the provision of food, art and crafts materials and online art session to send dedications to frontline workers, recording video messages, online events, or other new ways of sharing between each other in these difficult times. We will provide guidance in developing social media material to ensure your Act of Kindness is shared across Scotland.
For more information on this and the forthcoming Artistic Messages to Scotland programme, you can read the full press release below:
