Date of Event : July 23, 2013 (from 9:30am – 1:30pm)
Venue: India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi
INDIACSR News Network
NEW DELHI: WomenChangeMakers India, the unique fellowship for women’s empowerment models launched by the Geneva-based philanthropic organisation ‘Womanity Foundation’, is hosting a thematic discussion titled “Creating Corporate-Social Partnerships for Women’s Empowerment”. The event assumes significance against the backdrop of the Government of India’s (GoI) recent norm that requires all public sector
undertakings to set aside 2% of profits as funds for corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities. A similar guideline has been proposed in the amendments to the new Companies Bill, where an entire section on CSR has been added. If passed, the Act would be binding on all corporate entities as well.
Additionally, the remaining years of the GoI’s 11th Five-year Plan and the approach to the 12th Five-year Plan is focussed on skill development programs for which it has allocated large funding towards capacity building and technical training(s). The GoI, the private sector and not-for-profit, industry-led organizations such as the Confederation of Indian Industries have already started engaging in meaningful public-private-community partnerships to take forward the government’s vision of creating a workforce of 500 million skilled people by 2022.
The WomenChangeMakers India program harnesses corporate partnerships beyond funding for its Fellows, enabling the former to leverage their contribution towards creating sustainable social change, and making it possible for social entrepreneurs to benefit from professional systems that make their models sustainable and impactful. An example demonstrative of this is the work that the WomenChangeMakers corporate partners – Accenture, Booz & Co, Mercuri Urval and Ogilvy Action — are doing with Educate Girls ((http://educategirls.in),founded by Safeena Husain, WomenChangeMakers’ first India Fellow. This event will provide a platform for various stakeholders from the private and social development sectors to share their strategies on engaging with crucial development issues in sustainable ways.
Globally, the WomenChangeMakers program aims to demonstrate that social innovation can scale more effectively with appropriate professional partnerships, and that market-led entrepreneurs have a lot to gain from collaborating closely with social entrepreneurs. These multi-dimensional partnerships will, it is envisaged, usher in significant and game-changing social progress in communities and societies.
Some of the distinguished speakers at the event are:
Yann Borgstedt, An Entreprenuer & Founder President of the Womanity Foundation
Sunita Singh, Sr. Director & Co-founder, National Entrepreneurship Network
Deval Sanghavi, Partner and Co-founder – Dasra
Safeena Husain, Founder of Educate Girls
Vishnu Swaminathan, Country Head of Ashoka India
Pooja Bhatt, South Asia Geographic Lead for Accenture Development Partnerships
Kenneth Lean, Senior Consultant, MercuriUrval
Chetna Gala Sinha, Founder – Mann Deshi Bank
Guest at the Event
Eric de Turckheim, Board Member – Trafigura Foundation
Eric was one of the founding partners of Trafigura in 1993. After retiring from his executive duties in 2009, he now sits on the Group’s Supervisory Board. A French national with a wealth of international experience, Eric graduated from the Institutd’ Études Politiques in Paris and holds several advanced degrees in Economics. An accomplished sportsman and keen philanthropist, Eric enjoys taking part in different sporting events to raise funds for charitable causes.
(Visit the organization site: www.trafigurafoundation.com)
WomenChangeMakers India Program
The WomenChangeMakers Fellowship is a program of the Geneva-based philanthropic organisation, Womanity Foundation. WomenChangeMakers focusses on identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs who run successful organisations that work for women’s empowerment, address systemic gender inequalities, and positively transform society. With the overarching goal of enabling social entrepreneurs to scale and/or replicate their programand, ultimately maximise impact, WomenChangeMakers Fellows are provided with the following:
( i) Access to professional resources and partners, such as consultancies and training by Accenture, Booz & Co., Mercuri Urval, Egon Zehnder, and others;
(ii) Connections with investors and other social entrepreneurs working in a similar space; and
(iii) Mentorships, partnerships, and key professional consultations. The WomenChangeMakers program is active in India and Brazil.
Educate Girls
Educate Girls works to reform government schools for girls’ education by leveraging existing community and government resources. Along with education, the NGO focusses on improving school infrastructure for girls, bringing about community ownership and advocating girl leadership. Since 2008, the organization has impacted the lives of over 200,000 girls in two districts and aims to positively impact the lives of 1.6 million children by 2016. After tackling the issue of girls’ education in Pali and Jalore districts of Rajasthan, Educate Girls is now scaling in the Sirohi district of Rajasthan.
“The Womanity Foundation and its WomenChangeMakers’ program are fully committed to leveraging the innovative ways in which social entrepreneurs drive positive change for women and their communities. We are grateful to all the corporate and social partners who have followed us in this endeavour from the very beginning, and we invite others to join us in our efforts to help strong projects reach scale and multiply their impact.”
Yann Borgstedt
Entrepreneur & Founder President – Womanity Foundation
“We salute the GoI’s progressive stance on pushing for effective collaborations between the social, public and private sectors. Through the WomenChangeMakers’ program in India, we wish to ensure that such collaborations benefit the advancement of girls and women throughout the country. When girls and women progress in society, everyone benefits and the whole community thrives.”
Antonella Notari Vischer
Director – Womanity Foundation
“Social Entrepreneurs are focused social impact creators. Professional organizational development could catalyse sustainable growth for them-that’s the philosophy of WomenChangemakers fellowship that invests resources with its fellow(s) who demonstrate viable mature stage women empowerment models.”
Indrani Sharma
Country Representative – WomenChangeMakers India
For more details, contact:
WomenChangeMakers India Program: Indrani Sharma at indrani@womenchangemakers.org; Mobile: +91 9560855522
Event Information: Madhuwanti Basu at womenchangemakers.india@gmail.com, Mobile: +91 8142112111
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