The New Africa Cultural Initiative (NACI) has taken Manju Journal’s decade-long digital archive of African creativity into a sustainable institutional model. Founder Richmond Orlando Mensah sees NACI as a bridge between talented creatives and the resources they need to thrive, emphasizing local support over external validation.

NACI’s inaugural project is a textile workshop with multidisciplinary artist Zohra Opoku in Accra, Ghana. This initiative reflects an overarching goal: to foster cross-cultural collaborations while ensuring African artistic capital remains anchored at home.

Mensah believes it's crucial for institutions like NACI to act as intermediaries between emerging artists and potential funders. ‘We don’t need to depend on middlemen from outside to guide us—the creativity is already here,’ he says, highlighting the importance of maintaining local infrastructure.

While there’s growing interest in African art internationally, many creatives still seek validation abroad due to gaps in long-term support within Africa. NACI hopes to change this by providing a robust framework that keeps artistic and intellectual capital within the continent.

The micro-grant initiative is just one step in building a larger infrastructure for creative development. Mensah envisions an environment where artists can grow and thrive, not just for themselves but for future generations of creators looking up to them.