The creative hand up.

As a young writer, I have always ached tocreate a habit that becomes a culture for women in the creative’s industry to promote extraordinary creativity, personality and innovation.I understand how important it is, to remind women everyday how important it is to be creative through their own convictions and passions.I have written for a few sites online; the amazing women groups that reach out to young talent like mine, the relationship blogs that I wrote for when my heart was bleeding and my own blogthat addresses social issues in Kenya and champions for gender empowerment; bringing about balance without shaking culture, ideologies and maintaining respect and a great attitude.

Through my struggles of a writer, I have also been unlucky to have studied sociology in a field full of experts in media and journalism. I call studying sociology unlucky because my interests are purely driven to Social media management and communication; something I didn't study for, at all. I almost quit writing after a really horrible interview of being asked over and over why I have a confused life career path. The minute I chose to do Sociology, I became less of a writer in the interview board rooms.

So, when I met an artist who needed a platform as badly as I did and inspired each other's work (she sketched the emotions illustrated in my article), we realized the only reason we didn’t have pride and value for our work was simply because we had no way of championing it. For months, it was just a group of creatives; friends rather, inspiring each other. We always encouraged each other, supported each other and finally started attending seminars and realized, there are just too many of us! We had a great weapon; technology, yet we didn't use it. The IT industry in Kenya is undergoing a tremendous growth annually. With IT growth; art, music, writing & poetry, graphic design and dancing et.al; we realized that creativity has an added benefit of placing women in the creative space in a prime position to be a part of the international creative industry.

There was so much roaming talent but no confidence, no platform and no way to get new inspirations! We needed a platform! A place where this, the encouragement and hand holding to create beauty and value, could be possible. So, establishing a Hub for women in the creatives industry while taking advantage of technology advancements, became the fuel of our drive. In a month or two, since we already had the events and forums running among ourselves as friends, we launched a campaign on Indiegogo to raise funds and have a system made (an interactive website). Out of the $1000 goal we set, we got 12% of it. So, it was up to us to chip in and start it. We did!

We were set to provide significant opportunities for economic growth in line with the country’s vision 2030 and a few sacrifices was just a step of a thousand miles. After all, a boost into the creative space for women, is a chance to experience exponential growth since, we are empowering the backbone of the society. We already understood that the advent of better international connectivity is going to be beneficial to Kenya’s creative markets and empower the women in particular using technology.

3 hard months, we spent sleepless nights but I am proud to say, Creatives Piazza (CP) is here. We have started with a website, have started the plans toorganize affordable events monthly either for competitions, exposure or rather; fun days and have quarterly creatives forums.As we work towards the app, we as 23 year old creatives and Co-Founders of CP, have channeled our love into a platform that can help millions. We hope thatthe world will be a better place if we use creativity and technology to solve problems. The dawn of better international connectivity, something we envision, is going to be beneficial to Kenya’s creative markets and empower the women in particular, as weaim at having interaction with other creatives globally to ensure that we are not limited by culture or underexposure as creativity; contemporary and culture, creates a beautiful combination!