Jyoti Shekar 

Once women find sisterhood, there is nothing stronger, goes a famous saying.

A strong statement that has the power of transforming many a lives. In this edition, we bring you one such unique endeavour that bases itself on the above premise. Fuzia is an independent online space for talented and ambitious individuals to showcase their work, exhibit their talents, connect with peers and learn in a mutually supportive environment driven by inspiration, creativity and encouragement. The platform works towards the cause of Empowering Women through the power of Creative Expressions.

Here are some snippets of my conversation with the founders of Fuzia – Riya Sinha and Shraddha Varma.

Jyoti: So tell us, what is Fuzia all about and how did it take shape?

Fuzia: Well, we at Fuzia feel that this world needs more acceptance, and less judgment and conspiracy. And with that basic thought, we built an online platform where our 30000+ users across the globe connect each day. Sorority and opportunities for women to encash financial independence motivated the two of us to lay down the founding bricks of Fuzia.

Our humble beginning was in the form of a writing club in the US. The writing club later grew and expanded to what it is today, with a strong team of 35 members aligned towards a common goal of empowering women worldwide.

We were driven by the cause of uplifting women, being already frustrated with the stereotypical codes of their society.

We strongly believe – if women are to break away from the clutches of orthodox, patriarchal, pseudo/liberal patriarchal brackets, then economic independence becomes a prerequisite for them.

Today, we ensure that by connecting women from different parts of the world.

Jyoti: So does the platform focus on female artists only?

Fuzia: We are essentially a platform for individuals to showcase their talent and creativity in a mutually supportive environment. Women Empowerment is definitely one of our ultimate focus area, however, we also believe that this can only be achieved when people believe and understand the importance of ‘She for She‘ and ‘He for She‘. So yes, men are equally important too. Believing that talent shared is talent encouraged, we conduct various campaigns and contests where people participate globally and are encouraged to come out of their shells and express. Such activities are hosted to allow individuals to explore their creative niche and become more self-confident.

We also collaborate with our in-house network of talents and experts/social media influencers, entrepreneurs, and inspirational women and organise interactive live sessions that facilitates exchange of ideas, mentoring and a complete learning session.

We are proud of our team members who now run their companies after getting the right set of experience and networking. This is what we are trying to do, making our sisters become strong and experts so that they can generate employment for other women and help them grow and become independent. Ultimately, nurturing future women leaders.

Jyoti: What do you plan to achieve in the long run, in terms of empowerment of women?

Fuzia: With an increased sense of global understanding and promotion of women centric ideas in every aspect of life, there is an exceeding demand of platforms which let women across the world showcase and develop their talent, abilities, creative skills and outstanding persona in their own unmatched way.

As a group of individuals who look forward step by step towards attaining pillars of creative empowerment, community growth, individual strength and artistic magnification, we aspire to establish a space for women where they can be free from their own little cages and express themselves with true liberty. This space extends its hands through our wide world and believes in the strength of young minds! We believe that a society where women are strengthened is a society empowered in reality.

When we talk of our long-term plan in terms of empowering women, we see ourselves delve into the ocean of not only finding talent, but nurturing it through live sessions, campaigns, online learning, webinars, workshops, experiential learning, contests and so on. These initiatives help women develop their skills and grow enormously. This talent is then showcased in every possible way through our website and various social media platforms.

With the talent that women come up with, we aspire to provide them economic benefit and opportunity through various ways and means. We then aim to place the right skill at the right place, which benefits both the company and its users economically.

We are also hands-on with the full-fledged and advanced mobile applications for the ease of use by our members and people across the globe! Our focus is to keep improving the existing Mobile App to make it super handy for individuals to make Creative Growth and Learning easily accessible to them!

Jyoti:  Are you coming up with any special online events during the lockdown?

Fuzia: We are running various engaging and trending campaigns and contests on our social media and website. We organised a number of campaigns under lockdown challenges that our Instagram and other pages are flooded with! The most recent and special one is a challenge of ‘Fuzia Fighters – make your own mask!’ It helps people to make and donate masks to those who are in need of it.

The lockdown has resulted in an acute shortage of entertainment and skill development resources. We have come up with a special page on our website called ‘Quarantimes‘ which aims to provide self-help resources as blogs and microblogs for entertainment and learning purposes.

We are trying to give cues to our Fuzia members on how to cope with this Corona crisis as it has taken a toll on all of us mentally and we all feel physically inactive and unproductive! Our goal is to engage them in interesting tasks and keep them hopeful with positive affirmations.

Jyoti: What do you consider your distinguishing feature?

Fuzia: Like various start-ups that run across the globe with unparalleled dreams, ours began with a dream of empowering women and valuing art (which often goes unvalued). Striving for a better world with the hope of empowering creativity since November 2015, we have now achieved heights of success and have made our mark internationally.

What makes us unique is our belief in the ability of women who are yet to be successful and the idea that the staircase to their success is their happiness in what they like to do.

We have, over the years, built a solid global community of individual creators, writers and artists who put their belief in the voice of youth and the power of out-of-the-box creativity. Its visible success owes a great deal to the palpable love for the work we do and to the understanding we keep intact together as a team.

To make sure the creativity is built to the core and no talent goes in vain, we have also collaborated with various organizations and with the support of these esteemed collaborations, we spread learning, expert support and guidance.