#Kreate Initiative

Poverty when coupled with creativeness is usually free of frustration. This is true of the poor artisan skilled in his trade and of the poor writer, artist and scientist in the full possession of creative powers. Nothing so bolsters our self-confidence and reconciles us with ourselves as the continuous ability to create; to see things grow and develop under our hand, day in, day out. The decline of handicrafts in modern times is perhaps one of the causes for the rise of frustration and the increased susceptibility of the individual to mass movements. – Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

These past few weeks have been crazy. Some weird sense of political instability is fresh in the air. For myself, things have been crazier. I’ve been swamped with tonnes of tasks to complete for different teams. In the midst of all this craziness and work, I’ve found refuge in the idea behind #Kreate- a random initiative that Ian Macharia came up with, and which, as the name implies, is about creating stuff. The core- idea behind #Kreate to be able to create anything, in whatever field and share it with other people. #Kreate’s goal is to create a movement of sorts that encourages the creation of things, without fear of mistakes- in fact, mistakes(and half-done work) are embraced.

The idea behind #Kreate is not new. A need for creative expression and a desire to get away from the consumerism culture that sorrounds us birthed #Kreate. Personally, interacting with people from various fields, i.e. design and photography, played a huge role in my desire to be a part of this “movement”. Creating things has the side effect of boosting our self confidence in ourselves in addition to forming a positive feedback loop of self drive in ourselves. For some of my friends, #Kreate has become something that challenges them to level up in their skillset. For me, hanging around people who not only talk about new stuff but also try them out is exciting. There’s a weird sense of satisfaction I get from chilling out with such people.

A couple of months of back, I was involved in the same “#Kreate” initiative, which ended up failing. Looking back at how we did things back then is a lesson in organisation and process refinement. The most important lesson is “Taking the lead”. In any undertaking, if you take the lead, and be consistent with it, other people will naturally follow. Like minded people will follow you and your followers will have followers; and thus a movement is born. Following this line of logic, my friends and I have committed ourselves to “taking the lead”. We have tried to create things as consistently as we can and share these things on social media. We meet up once a week and discuss things related to creating things.

Right now, we have little to show for our initiative. Nevertheless, here’s a couple of things that have been done: 1. UrbanPerspective Book Club (Yes! This was originally a #Kreate initiative- one where I was very committed to). This a Nairobi based book club whose members meet once a month at some coffee shop. 2. Mutura Shenanigans. My friend’s commitment to editing tonnes of random videos. 3. Learning UI/ UX stuff. My friend’s path in learning UI/ UX and IXD stuff from scratch.

My goal for this movement is to create an unbiased environment that encourages people to build and make things. Let’s see where this goes :)