Literature is a means of expression, it is related to our deepest thoughts and conditioned by our upbringing and our cultural background. Some of our young people have the necessary talent but they don’t use it, CSSG encourages them through a mentoring relationship and a development of their potential. At a later stage a specific career building plan will be established.

In 2014 and 2015 we have raised gender awareness among young girls in India and in other countries. The girls were asked to write letters and use their creative minds to express their innermost thoughts in a cathartic manner that allowed us to rebuild ideas on the role of women in society today.

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These women included Aarti Dham Jain (company director), Abha Adams (educationalist), Aditi Kapoor (entrepreneur), Aditi Mangaldas (dancer), Aditi Rao Hydari (actress), Anjolie Ela Menon (artist), Anna – Marie Lopes (communications executive and domestic violence victim), Anoushka Menon (photographer), Dia Mirza (actress and activist), Girija Shivakumar (journalist), Julia Carmel Desa (chef), Konkona Sen Sharma (actress), Kusum Haidar (theatre actress), Lushin Dubey (theatre and film actress), Namrata Joshipura (designer), Nandini Bhalla (editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan India), Nishat Fatima (editor of Harper’s Bazaar India), Omkari Devi (taxi driver), Payal Pratap Singh (designer), Poonam Muttreja (executive director, Population Foundation of India), Priya Paul (hotelier and business woman), Riddhima Kapoor Sahni (designer and home maker), Ruchi Sibal (entrepreneur), Shabana Azmi (actress and activist), Sheetal Dewan (counselor and artist), Shefalee Vasudev (editor of HT Mint India), Sonalika Sahay (model), Sonam Kalra (singer), Soniya (beautician and acid attack victim), Vidushi Mehra (theatre and film actress)…

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CSSG & THE CREATIVE SECTORS

At Creative Services Support Group (CSSG) we want to open the way to self-reflection, invention, and creative skills. We have studied the relationship between underprivileged youth and the creative sectors and we have identified the needs. The underprivileged young individuals receive inadequate support and need help to have access to vocational training and mentorship.

Many organizations already work on vocational training, they mainly prepare people for careers as hairdressers or machinists, some of them also provide training in traditional handicrafts or performance art to perpetuate India’s rich cultural heritage.

Our specificity is our upstream work. We don’t provide only vocational training and technical knowledge, we want to awaken and develop the creative skills of these young people. We know

what the opportunities are from a cultural, social , and economic point of view and our approach is new.

By providing opportunities in the creative sectors, CSSG concentrates on a large group of men and women whose talents have never been considered. Everyone cannot become a lawyer or a doctor, fortunately other alternatives exist. Approximately 10% of the underprivileged youth can reach outstanding positions, 40% find their way and get traditional jobs, CSSG focuses on the remaining 50%.

Employment in the creative sectors requires less financial investment than formal academic studies, training can be done on the job and trainees can be helpful, so that the creative sectors are widely open to underprivileged people. Our approach is very efficient, however positioning every creative sector requires around 3 years to be launched, developed, implemented, monitored and evaluated. Specific activities and objectives have to match general objectives, so CSSG has planned a strategy, some sectors are more general and relevant at an early stage whereas other sectors are more specific and adapted to a later stage. In any case most creative sectors are closely related to each other and the development of a particular sector influences the development of other sectors.