575 creative industry players receive RM10 mln under CENDANA recovery initiative

Minister of Communications and Multimedia Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah said the fund, under the National Economic Recovery Plan (PENJANA), would provide job opportunities and benefit to over 3,000 artistes and cultural workers in the country.

He said the number of funds or grants received differed depending on the applications and programme targeted.

‘’Among the fund amounts (available) are small grants of up to RM3,500 to adapt to the new normal situation, working online and for short term durations,’’ he said.

He was speaking at a media conference on the announcement of the recipients of the CENDANA Recovery Initiative Funds under PENJANA here, yesterday.

In addition, Saifuddin said there were funds up to RM35,000 which were available for arts and cultural spaces involving supports in terms of rental and utilities and funds up to RM100,000 to make arts as part of the urbanscape.

The ceremony to hand over the grants today involved the physical presence of 35 of the 575 recipients while the rest virtually attended the programme.

The efforts were part of the financial aid under PENJANA for the creative industry which was announced by the government in June last year.

Also present were Ministry of Communications and Multimedia (KKM) secretary-general Datuk Seri Mohammad Mentek, CENDANA chief executive officer Izan Satrina Mohd Sallehuddin and MyCreative Ventures Sdn Bhd (MyCreative) chairman Noor Azmi Mat Said.

Earlier, Izan, in her speech, said 93 per cent of the 692 arts industry players were negatively impacted by COVID-19.

As such, CENDANA endeavoured to help protect jobs and create opportunities for most of the workers in the arts and cultural sector.