U.S. Embassy Praia Grant: Supporting Cabo Verdean Artist Entrepreneurship Through ‘Kriolu Kafe’ Virtual Concerts

The U.S. Embassy Praia of the U.S. Department of State announces an open competition for organizations to submit applications to carry out a program to increase entrepreneurship amongst Cabo Verdean artist through the virtual concert series “Kriolu Kafe.”  Please follow all instructions below.

Program Objectives: 

This program seeks to award a cooperative agreement for up to $25,000 to host four virtual concerts featuring Cabo Verdean and American artists via the “live” function on U.S. Embassy Praia’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.  The purpose of this project is to promote mutual understanding between the U.S. and Cabo Verde through the arts, and to promote a series of entrepreneurship conferences for artists with speakers provided by U.S. Embassy Praia.

U.S. Embassy created “Kriolu Kafe” in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to show support for the local artist community and provide a mechanism to teach artists key entrepreneurship tenets, and how to critically think about how to sell their art in the global marketplace.  This program has been very successful so far, and the Embassy expects that the concert series will continue to be successful in the future.

Applicants are expected to manage all logistical requirements for the concert series including but not limited to professional lighting, sound and high-quality film production.  Furthermore, applicants are expected to work with the Public Diplomacy (PD) Section at U.S. Embassy Praia to identify artistic talent and concert themes.  The PD section reserves the right to approve all artistic and logistics decisions.  The PD Section will pay for American artists separately, and will manage all logistics for any participating American artists in addition to providing no-cost venues.

Applicants should budget for local contracting of lighting, sound and camera services, light food and beverage services for each concert.  Furthermore, applicants should budget for three virtual entrepreneurship workshops and at least one in-person workshop if the COVID-19 pandemic permits.  Line items may include but are not limited to rental of conference space, acquisition of conference services including coffee/tea service and lunch during each conference, honoraria and travel costs for local speakers and any technical support including costs for WIFI.