Sustainable Orcas Island

Creatives Against Poverty is a collective of professionals that pools and contributes skills for social impact. We are currently comprised of journalists, consultants, fashion industry professionals, photographers, NGO workers and entrepreneurs. As journalists we find ourselves scouring the seamy underbelly of society for stories. Everyday we pry open people’s lives, asking about their challenges, hopes and dreams, making them detail their plight. In that exchange of information, some of us feel there is an implication of help, and so we commit ourselves to turning to our friends and partners in humanitarian work and presenting the problem at hand, publishing articles and photo essays on the crisis or issue at every opportunity in the hope of creating a positive conversation around the crisis or issue. Entrepreneurs, bloggers, teachers and journalists all have diverse skills that span the spectrum from business to media to techno-savvy. Together, we are a powerful force for change. We first use our time in the field to identify the NGOs who support the most vulnerable victims of poverty or conflict with the most efficient means available to them. We look for NGOs who have made an effort to create sustainable change in their targeted area. We identify the NGO that is making the largest impact with the least amount of out reach and exposure. We look for organizations with a small, mostly volunteer run network. We then take a look at the skills and resources we have in our pool of creatives who have committed themselves to combating poverty and offer them to the NGO. A photographer returns with hundreds of high resolution pictures of an artistic quality that an NGO may not have the time, money, vision, or skills to produce. We create a photo essay for that NGO to use to support their fund raising efforts. Making websites. Editing newsletters. Shooting and editing mini documentaries. Parties. Fashion Shows. Bake sales. This is where we get creative. Bring us a problem and we will commit ourselves to ideating till a solution lights up our buzzing brains and then we commit ourselves to creating action from these ideas.

Creatives against Poverty work in 3 main ways:

Party against Poverty – our fundraising model raises money for the underprivileged by extracting a pleasure tax for partying.

Act against Poverty – our active involvement with the charities that we support

Report against Poverty – our reporting for these charities that exposes the injustices against marginalized members of society.

Charities Supported by CAP:

MESCO: Rs. 1500 doesn't dent our wallet but it goes a long way for the nursery schools that MESCO runs for underprivileged children in Bharatnagar, Ifteqaarnagar and Dharavi. We have been working with them since November 2007, investigating the failure of the municipal school system to provide a basic opportunity for Mumbai's youngest and most vulnerable citizens. Our last Party against Poverty initiatives have helped us raise funds to run and support the Little Blossoms Nursery for 25 children in the slums of Andheri for an entire school year. With this fundraiser, we endeavor to raise money to support the same nursery for another year. Your 1500 rupees guarantees that these kids get basic English skills, health checkups, and a lunch snack that is the only meal some of these kids will get that day. MESCO provides text books, the uniforms, shoes, free schooling and hires teachers at market rate.

Anu Narayan Gaur: We found this 9 year old girl in hospital in Malad where she was due to die in the next 20 days as she had to get her heart valves replaced and no hospital would do it coz she didn’t have a ration card. We found a doctor at Bombay hospital who would do it for 50% of the cost – Rs. 1.7 lakhs. We raised the amount in 2 days and got her surgery done. She is now back to good health now and Creatives against Poverty is taking care of her post-medical care and education. We have gotten her admission in an English medium school in Bhayander where she has just started studying. She has just given her exams and has proved to be an all-A student. We are raising money to put Anu into a better school in the future. We have also got her brother driving lessons so that he can become a chauffer for a corporate and earn more money for the family.

Georges Malaika Foundation in Congo: We are helping Noella Coursaris build a school to fight hunger and hopelessness deep in conflict-ridden Congo. During the course of a reporting assignment we were exposed to nine year olds violated by soldiers who consider rape a weapon of war they can wield with impunity. The scramble for the resources buried deep inside the rich, red soil has fueled the conflict in Congo for more than a decade. Most human rights groups on the ground agree that there is genocide in progress, a systematic culling of a people because of their ethnic origin that has already claimed the lives of six to eight million civilians. Some say the number is more likely at 12 million. Mark Twain and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle documented the horror of the first Congo genocide which saw 10 million butchered. Now there is another one in progress. During the Belgian empire, it was about ivory and then rubber. Now it’s about Coltan, a tin ore we have in our laptops, cell phones and Sony Playstation. Multiple generations of Congolese children have known nothing but the war. The government has stopped investing in schools because they say rebel militias burn the desks and chairs for fire wood and use the schools as army barracks. But Congo is the size of Europe and massive tracts of the country are safe from the war in Eastern Congo. And yet the unofficially policy has trickled into budgets in Katanga, and schools are no longer a priority. We want to give these children back their childhood. Please help us spread the word.

Media Support: We provide media support to Under the Baobab Tree in Malawi, Georges Malaika in Congo, All for Africa in New York City, Mesco in Mumbai, and Steps NGO in Tamil Nadu run by Sherifa Khanum:

Sherifa Khanum: is a women’s rights activist working out in the village of Pudukkotai, on the outskirts of Trichy in Tamil Nadu. Her organization spends its time educating abused women about their rights and telling police officers that they cannot turn away Muslim women and insist they seek a separate route to justice. We raise awareness to support Sherifa’s organization that helps bring justice to battered women.

Our Team:

Fatima Najm, Co-founder CAP Mumbai, Founder CAP London, CAP London Lead

Namrata Tanna, Co-founder CAP Mumbai, CAP Mumbai Lead

Neha Kumar, Co-founder, CAP Hong Kong, CAP Hong Kong Lead