Video: Beat all odds and rise

In December 2014, Delhi based NGO Creative Services Support Group (CSSG) conducted a series of workshops where young girls expressed their concerns, fears and hopes for the future through open letters to the world. This film, starring Aditi Rao Hydari, Dia Mirza, Konkona Sen Sharma, Lushin Dubey, Namrata Joshipura, Priya Paul, Riddhima Kapoor, Shabana Azmi, Sonalika Sahay, Sonam Kalra and Vidushi Mehra among others, captures the ripples their words created.

These influential women, leaders and role models, recite some open letters written by teenage girls from various parts of the world, talking about gender discrimination, what they think would have been different if they were boys, their lack of freedom to express, the sexist comments they have to face at every stage of life along with surviving in a society that continuously curbs their rights. They end with some inspiring lines from influential writer Maya Angelou’s poem– And Still I Rise. While the video highlights all the odds that women have to face, it inspires them to rise against all of them.