CSSG seeks to support underprivileged youth in policy. Policy plays a key role in effectively supporting the design and implementation of activities and programmes in the rest of the sectors. It is indeed seen as a key element to produce a change in the way poverty is dealt with. Youth with abilities to see creativity from a holistic perspective and with abilities in more than one of them could be strongly supported by CSSG through awareness building, training, education, mentoring and job placement, to become important actors, managers, monitors and/or evaluators in the design and implementation of policies for all of the creative industries.

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.