Rural Arts Projects Funded

April 29, 2008: The Bega Valley Shire Library and the Friends of the Libraries have received grants from Regional Arts NSW through the 2008 Country Arts Support Program (CASP).

The two applications were among 139 approved for new arts projects in regional, rural and remote NSW, with a remarkable range of activities, from terrazzo tiles to tiled history poles, comedy to cartooning, and puppetry to pavement art.

"This small grants program has a major impact and plays a vital role in regional communities of NSW," the CEO of Regional Arts NSW, Elizabeth Rogers, said.

"With such a diverse range of impressive projects and high quality applications, assessment becomes harder every year."

Details of the two Bega Valley Shire projects are:

• $1,500 to Bega Valley Shire Library for a Visiting Children's Author. A prominent children's author will be invited to run workshops at Bega Valley Shire libraries and local schools to broaden rural children's experience of literature.

• $1,500 to Friends of the Libraries of the Bega Valley Shire Inc for Book Theatre. Three literary theatre events to be conducted across the Bega Valley Shire during National Book Week, hosted by the Friends with the assistance of local group, Theatre Onset.

CASP is a key regional arts funding program for NSW which provides support to employ artists in locally initiated arts and cultural projects. The aim is to provide access to arts activities for small communities, to encourage communities to work together on cultural projects, to foster cultural diversity in the regions and to ensure that regional and rural areas have an artistic voice.