Founded by the late Riky Rick and the Cotton Fest team, the programme has been created to give back to the students in the community, while creating various outlets to empower young creatives to succeed in their studies and career.

Considering Riky himself was a former AFDA student, the team decided to further build on his legacy by creating a platform to support creative students in year one. Having kicked off recently, the programme selected three top AFDA students from Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban respectively, awarding them bursaries,  funded by Cotton Fest and long standing partner - PUMA, to cover the shortfall of their tuition fees, and assist them to graduate. 

“We are extremely excited to have the privilege to assist young people achieve this huge milestone in their educational journey,” said Riky’s partner Bianca Naidoo and adds ‘When we started Cotton Fest, the idea was not just to have a once off concert, but to do so much more for the culture as a whole, and moreover offer support within the community. Now with the additional financial injection from PUMA this year, we were finally able to make the Cotton Fest Creative Programme a reality and action this support".


The programme is set to run annually and welcomes the support of other corporates and financial institutions to step in and assist.