Creative industries board proposed for Sabah

Sabah Assistant Education and Innovation Minister Jenifer Lasimbang (second from right) speaking during the seminar on the state’s rural creative communities in Kota Kinabalu today.

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Assistant Education and Innovation Minister Jenifer Lasimbang has called for the establishment of a board to develop the arts and creative industries in the state.

The board will help streamline the three main arts and creative groups, she said, adding that it will enable them to move forward and prosper.

The main groups are those dealing with cultural heritage, the performing arts and the creative media.

Describing the arts and creative scene as “fragmented”, Lasimbang said the setting up of the board would ensure monitoring as well as promotion and marketing.

“It’s good to have the same vision and mission so no one is left behind,” she said at a seminar on “Sabah’s Rural Creative Communities: Developing and Revitalising Rural Communities Through Art and Creativity”, organised by the state think-thank Institute for Development Studies (IDS) here today.

She urged IDS to help identify a group of professionals to assist arts and creative groups, especially those from the rural areas, to write proposals for grants from international organisations.

“There are funds from international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) available but the only problem is it requires stringent proposal writing to obtain the funds and reporting after getting the grants,” she said.

While the government and local organisations also offer grants, she said those from international NGOs are considerably higher and could go a long way towards helping creative groups in the rural areas.

Having worked with Unicef before, Lasimbang said she had on numerous occasions helped the rural communities to draw up proposals to apply for international grants.

Earlier, IDS chairman Simon Sipaun said there was big pool of creative talents in Sabah, including those from the rural areas.

However, the opportunity to develop such talents to their full potential was limited, he said, due to the lack of a support mechanism from the government.

A board established under the Chief Minister’s Department to spearhead and monitor the development of the arts and creative industries in Sabah was, therefore, welcomed, Sipaun said. - FMT