Beiersdorf believes in girls and women as leaders of change towards a more inclusive society
With ‘International Day of the Girl’ taking place on October 11th, 2021, we’re taking the the opportunity to give you more insight into our partnership with Ashoka.
With the slogan for this year’s ‘Internationl Day of The Girl’ being ‘My Voice, Our Equal Future’, we’d like to share some exciting news about our partnership with pioneer Ashoka, a leading Social Entrepreneur network: we are expanding our ‘Empowering Girls’ mission to Europe!
“For us, the vision of an inclusive society plays an important role in our Sustainability Agenda, CARE BEYOND SKIN. This new partnership strengthens our engagement further and now brings our mission of ‘Empowering Girls’ to Europe,” states Jean-Francois Pascal, Vice President Corporate Sustainability at Beiersdorf.
An innovative way to help
Beiersdorf is starting the second wave of support for those girls and womenparticularly affected by the pandemic, and is expanding it into the field of social innovation.The company will be providing financial support — in the form of stipends — to five leading female social entrepreneurs in five European countries. This donation will focus on projects that empower girls and women.
Coming from Belgium, Poland, Italy, Switzerland and the UK, the five female European social entrepreneurs are addressing different facets of female empowerment in the Covid-19 crisis and beyond. They will help to eradicate violence against women, overcome gender stereotypes, empower girls to dream big and work towards a new economy with gender equity allowing for new perspectives in the workplace. Our Ashoka fellows are part of a network of 3,800 social entrepreneurs in more than 90 countries.
„We have been fostering the transformative power of Social Entrepreneurs since 40 years and believe in their systemic and empowering approaches to not only show, but build futures that work for everyone,” says Marie Ringler, Head of Ashoka in Europe.
SONJA BETSCHART, Co-Founder of the WeRobotics’ project in Switzerland
Because development aid often fails to empower local groups, especially in the field of tech, ‘WeRobotics’ builds knowledge, learning and transfer spaces (so called Flying Labs) in the Global South, which empower local leaders — often women. Girls and women come together, learnand build locally needed solutions based on tech. Additional challenges or competitions are organized to change the gender balance in the field and involve girls in particular.
The network of the Flying Labs was mobilized to empower local leaders to respond to the COVID-19-crisis. As part of this initiative, activities such as ‘Coding against Covid’ or virtual drone training for mapping remote areas were carried out.
AGATA TEUTSCH, Director of the Autonomia Foundation in Poland
Gender-based violence is still very much a reality and many females lack the means to free themselves from violent situations. ‘Autonomia’ has established a primary prevention system of violence against women, with the goal to transform women from victims into active shapers of their reality.
That system has created four interconnected interventions for female citizens throughout their life: young girls find help in so called ‘The Girls’ Empowerment Centers’; schoolgirls can take part in the ‘Anti-discrimination Education Society’; young female leaders can join ‘Sisters’ Street’; and adult women have the opportunity to participate in the ‘We Do Academy’.
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic (which unfortunately saw an increase in violence against girls and women) the initiative established group empowerment processes by creating online safe spaces for communities that face oppression.
MARIE GIANNI, Creator of the Bet She Can foundation in Italy
The Bet She Can foundation aims to overcome gender stereotypes and development barriers for girls. It empowers female children to allow themselves to dream big without bias, just like their male counterparts. They carry out innovative training and active learning experiences that engage young girls, young male teenagers, schools,teachers and businesses. It communication campaigns aimed at a broader audience lead to more public attention.
HERA HUSSAIN, Founder and CEO of Chayn in the UK
Many victims of gender-based violence (GBV), such and migrant, queer and trans women, are under-served by existing frontline organizations. Chayn wants to change that. Survivor-volunteers create and curate simply worded, positively framed and trauma-informed how-to guides and toolkits for victims. All materials respect nuance of experience and inter-sectionality to create a sense of belonging and agency.
In 2020 and 2021, lockdowns led to increased tension, stress and violence. As a response to that, existing resources were augmented with online micro-courses. GBV victims were supported in engaging with and feeling connected to other victims and survivors.
ISABELLA LENARDUZZI, Founder of the JUMP social enterprise in Belgium
Lenarduzzi is addressing an important issue in Europe: unequal and discriminatory workplaces that still exist despite businesses best efforts. JUMP offers organizations customized and multi-layered solutions, such as audit, training, awareness sessions and consultancy expert analyses etc. Meanwhile, the initiative has built Europe’s largest network and knowledge hub for diversity and inclusion leaders to exchange ideas on best practices for gender equality at work. JUMP acts as a lever for strengthening the female talent pool and engaging strategically managers and leaders in gender equality and making use of ALL talents.
Numerous advocacy activities in Belgium, but also Italy, France and Germany, were initiated as a response to COVID-19, alerting public authorities and companies about the impact of the crisis on women, especially on economic inequalities and the place of women in companies.
“At Beiersdorf we are very pleased and proud to have selected these wonderful women and are looking forward to seeing their projects and initiatives expand. We are on a mission — together with our partners — to empower girls and young women,” states Christiane Hölscher, Global CSR Manager at Beiersdorf.
Find out more about our Empowering Girls initiative
Find out more about Beiersdorf
Find out more about Ashoka
