Black Cultural Archives awarded £200,000 to plug funding gap - Museums Association

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Black Cultural Archives awarded £200,000 to plug funding gap

Institution given breathing space to seek sustainable long-term income
The Black Cultural Archives (BCA) in Brixton, south London, has received a cash injection of £200,000 from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to secure its immediate future.
The institution ran into financial difficulty earlier this year when a £4m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund came to an end, causing its income to drop by two-thirds. The BCA's other major funder, Lambeth Council, has been unable to commit enough funding to plug the gap.
In October, a cross-party group of 100 MPs signed a letter urging the government to save the venue.  The DCMS announced last week that it would provide interim funding to enable the archives to remain open while a long-term solution is sought.
The culture secretary Jeremy Wright said: "The Black Cultural Archives does incredibly important work in preserving and promoting the history of African and Caribbean communities in the UK.
"This £200,000 funding is a crucial step in securing its future. We are working closely with the archives to put it on a long-term sustainable footing so that it can continue to educate the public and celebrate black history in Britain."
The BCA tweeted: "We're thrilled that government has announced £200,000 of short-term funding for BCA. We're working on a long-term funding plan to secure our place as [the] only national heritage centre dedicated to the histories of African & Caribbean people in Britain. We value your support!"
The archives were founded in 1981 and moved into the renovated Raleigh Building on Brixton's Windrush Square in 2014.

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