Canada’s Youth Media Alliance (YMA) and the Toronto Animation Arts Festival International (TAAFI) have announced a second group of recipients of the John Rooney Creator Scholarship.

Established in 2021, this fund is dedicated to the legacy of late Canadian children’s television veteran John Rooney. Honoring his tireless LGBTQ advocacy, it supports emerging creators from the community who are looking to build a career in kids and family animation. The program is set up to cover two separate streams focused on content development and scriptwriting.

Afro-Filipino writer Daniel Fernandes (pictured left) has been selected as this year’s recipient in the content development stream. Based in Toronto, Fernandes was the host and producer of TVOKids series The Space. He also has a growing scriptwriting resumé with credits on series including The Snoopy Show (AppleTV+) and Hamsterdale (Nickelodeon), plus a track record of leading Pride and BIPOC campaigns/episodes.

Fernandes will receive approximately US$3,700 that can be used for travel expenses, conference registration costs and other efforts to contact and network with industry professionals. 

Meanwhile, the scriptwriting stream is giving two emerging writers—Cindy Hu and Marc-Antoine Larche—an opportunity to be part of a writers room on a show that’s currently in production. US$1,850 will be allocated to each writer, covering up to 10 days of work.

Hu (pictured middle) graduated from Columbia University’s Film Production Program with an MFA in concentrated creative production. She moved to Canada at the age of 17 and has a unique storytelling perspective that resonates well with immigrant children. She has also worked on a wide variety of ads, short films, toons and corporate videos for companies based in Taiwan, China, the US and Canada.

Larche (pictured right) hails from Montreal’s National School of Humor, where he earned a degree in TV scriptwriting. He has also worked as a stage actor and a drama teacher for elementary and high school students. Larche’s talent caught the attention of Canada’s French-language channel Zone3, which optioned his youth project Basket. 

Previous recipients of the John Rooney Creator Fund include Kai Little-White (Gary’s Magic Fort), Scott Farley (Stories from my Gay Grandparents) and Mia Ema Falak (Broken Colors!).