Category: Women In Business

Cherie Blair, Founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women,

1)Which three words would you use to describe female social entrepreneurship today?

Powerful
Purposeful
Multiplying

2) Going back to basics, what motivated you to create the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women back in 2008, and why should we support women in creating their own businesses?

During my time at Downing Street, I was lucky enough to travel the world. I met countless women from different backgrounds, who were striving to set up businesses to create better lives for themselves and their families. I saw that, with the right support and tools, they could go on to achieve amazing things – not just for themselves, but for their families, communities and economies too. So, in 2008, I established the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women to support women entrepreneurs in developing and emerging economies – precisely because women in these countries face such greater barriers.

3) With regards to the women being accompanied by your mentoring programme, what tendencies do you notice regarding social entrepreneurship?

I am constantly inspired by the many ways the women entrepreneurs we work with feel a responsibility to ‘pay it forward’ and help others through their businesses. 80 per cent of our mentee community pass on what they’d learnt to others, while 50 per cent become mentors themselves.

One of the many inspiring social entrepreneurs our Mentoring Women in Business Programme has supported is Anja in Malaysia. She owns a company called Blubear Holdings Sdn Bhd – a social enterprise selling eco-friendly, reusable sanitary products, which ploughs over half its profits into programmes teaching life skills to girls aged nine to 17.

4) What kind of innovations or businesses do the women accompanied by the Cherie Blair Foundation develop?

We’ve worked with over 140,000 women entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, so as you can imagine the sectors and contexts they cover are hugely varied.

One great example is Mariela, one of our mentees from Argentina. She has worked in logistics in Argentina for two decades, but as a woman in a male-dominated industry, found that she struggled to have her ideas heard and progress to a management role. Frustrated, she and two friends decided to launch their own company, Kalima Shipping and Logistics Solutions, which offers logistical support to freight and trucking companies, focusing, in particular, on women-run SMEs.

5) What kind of obstacles do these women come up against?

Firstly, gender stereotypes and attitudes towards unpaid care work means that domestic duties are primarily placed on women’s shoulders. This can have a highly detrimental impact on their ability to participate in the economy – whether as employees or entrepreneurs.

Another key challenge is a lack of access to training and financial services. The International Financial Corporation estimates that around 65 per cent of women-owned small and medium enterprises in developing economies are underserved by financial institutions, representing a financing gap of $260-320 billion. Educational inequalities compound the issue, since women often lack the financial literacy, skills and confidence needed to effectively manage their finances.

6) Why do you think women might be more in-tune with social entrepreneurship?

Perhaps it’s the way we’re conditioned – generally, girls are socialised to care in a way that boys often aren’t. These rigid gender norms are shifting thankfully, but I do think that women’s heightened awareness of the needs and considerations of others may attract more women to social entrepreneurship.

7) Growing up as a young girl in Lancashire, England, which key role models inspired you to believe in yourself and chase your dreams?

My father left us when I was very little. I was raised by my mother and grandmother – two very strong women who taught me the value of being self-sufficient at an early age.

Both my mother and grandmother had to leave school at 14 but, because of that, they were determined that my sister and I would have a better start in life. We were encouraged to make the most of our education and, importantly, to believe in ourselves.

8) You obviously started your career focusing on the domain of law, what led you to orientating more towards entrepreneurship and business?

There is one fundamental value that has guided my life and career – the belief that everyone has the right to participate equally in their societies. It’s what attracted me to a career in law, and what guided my desire to start a Foundation focusing on women’s entrepreneurship.

Globally, we desperately need more women leaders and role models to inspire subsequent generations. When it comes to contexts where safe and decent work in the formal economy is difficult to come by – and always even more so for women – entrepreneurship offers an opportunity for women to take control of their own futures, create jobs and improve the lives of their families and communities.

9) We’ve noticed that the majority of your team at the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women (like in many other institutes focusing on gender issues) are women. What role do you think men should play in supporting female social entrepreneurs?

Men are part of the problem, so they absolutely must be part of the solution. We cannot hope to tackle gender inequality without men being a part of driving that change.

The question is how we get men to the table on issues of gender equality, and how do we convince them to do more than just ‘talk the talk’. How do we convince them that giving up some of their privilege and power would ultimately be beneficial for everyone, themselves included?

A great example is the Mann Deshi Foundation, one of our partners in India. In their programmes they offer financial literacy classes to men, after a woman attendee noted that there was no use her acquiring financial knowledge if her husband was going to continue his usual spending habits. They also celebrate the support of husbands at large community events where men are awarded for being particularly supportive of their wives’ ambitions.

10) What advice would you give to women who still hesitate to launch their own business?

All too often, women are told that they can’t. So my message is simply this: you can. Practical and emotional support for women entrepreneurs along the way is crucial – but inner strength and determination will make the difference between an aspiration remaining a dream or becoming a reality. When women believe in themselves, amazing things can happen.

11) To wrap things up and end on a positive note, looking into the future what kind of role models do you think young people (notably girls) should aspire to?

For today and fast forwarding into the future, and I think the ideal role models for girls would embody some of the same fundamentals. These women are true trailblazers and are creating positive spaces for others to achieve brilliance too.

After her father was diagnosed with early onset dementia at age 54, Melissa Chan’s life changed forever.

At just 14 years old, she became a young carer and struggled with the sudden role reversal. Where her days had once been filled of catching up with school friends, they were now spent bathing her father and preparing his meals.

As a teenager, she didn’t understand the disease nor why it was stealing her father away. When he eventually forgot who she was, Melissa began to doubt her own worth. “I wondered if I was not good enough to be remembered. A lot of questions ran through my head,” said Melissa, now 28.

Back then dementia was not talked about as much as it is now. “I never knew what dementia was, medically, and how it affects your brain,” said Chan. “Looking back, I would have really appreciated knowing what the symptoms are and how to cope as a young carer.”

And so three years ago following the death of her father in late 2014, Melissa decided to start something that would help her caregiving peers who feel as lost and overwhelmed as she did.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in business management and working nearly four years in the finance and hospitality industries, she founded the social enterprise Project We Forgot.

Heavily committed to the project, one month in Chan took the plunge and quit her full-time job to entirely focus her energy on the new venture.

Project We Forgot offers a support system for young caregivers aged under 39. The online platform enables them to share their experiences and connect with others with the help of social media.

Inspired by the photoblog Humans of New York, she started the website and related social media accounts to give young caregivers a platform to share their experiences and encourage one another online.

Jason Foo, CEO of Alzheimer’s Disease Association commented; “Some of them [young caregivers] don’t even know what to do and they are so used to having their mum or dad taking care of them. The role reversal can be very difficult for the child to accept.” He estimates that every year, up to 200 young caregivers are “thrown” into the role because more people are getting dementia earlier in their lives.

According to the National Neuroscience Institute in 2015, four times as many patients below 65 were diagnosed with dementia than in 2011. In Singapore alone an estimated 40,000 people live with dementia and one in 10 are under 65 years old.

“If you think about it, this means the caregivers are also getting younger because the patients are getting younger,” said Mr Foo.

Chan added: “This is where Project We Forgot comes in”.
After working on Project We Forgot solo for more than a year, Chan realised she would require more manpower and a bigger platform. Last year, her one-man team expanded to include chief technical officer Neo Kai Yuan, 27, and community manager Clarence Oo, 31.

So far, the business has managed to build a community of 3,000 caregivers across social media channels. It has also engaged with more than 200 caregivers who have reached out to the social enterprise directly for help.

On top of building a community, Project We Forgot also conducts workshops, training and outreach programmes at schools and other organisations.

A social networking app for caregivers is also in the works, and is expected to be released by the end of the year.

By providing these tools and services to meet the needs of caregivers, the team hopes to figure out a sustainable business model as a social enterprise soon.

“One of the first few things people say to us is that we should be a non-profit or charity instead, but as a team, we want to see how we can shape the business model for social causes,” said Melissa.

She stressed that the ultimate aim of Project We Forgot is not about the revenue, but that its success is dependent on its social impact.

“As a social enterprise, it’s not just about setting up a business. It’s also taking into consideration the lives we’re impacting and that’s what stresses me.”

While Project We Forgot has not yet seen any profits, it has earned financial support from both the private and public sector — its only source of funding at the moment. Last year, it was awarded a $20,000 grant under the Singtel Future Markers programme, and another undisclosed amount under the Singapore government’s National Youth Fund.

While these successes have been satisfying, the journey to ensuring Project We Forgot’s long-term future is still not an easy one, said Melissa, who has used her own savings to set up the business.

After more than two years working on the social enterprise, Melissa said she has learnt so much more about caregiving for patients with dementia — more than she did while her father was still alive.

Ndeye Amy Kebe Sylla, Jokalante (Senegal)

At 33 years old, Ndeye Amy Kebe Sylla perfectly embodies the spirit of her generation of young African female entrepreneurs. Passionate about Information and Communication Technology (ICT), in 2015 she launched Jokalante (meaning dialogue in Wolof): a company that is developing interactive communication tools aimed at fostering and disseminating best practices in the fields of agriculture, nutrition and animal welfare.

Ndeye Amy Kebe Sylla speaks quickly. Very quickly. And she acts fast, too. In 2013, after gaining a baccalaureate in science and a degree in finance and accountancy in Dakar, she decided to change path, taking up a distance-learning master’s course on the science of education and teaching to adults. “At the time, I was working for the Francophone University Agency (AUF) in Dakar. Accountancy didn’t interest me, but I loved the atmosphere at the AUF and started to develop a passion for information and communication technologies. Spending my days in that type of environment nurtured my interest, so much so that I decided I wanted to work in the field. I took up further studies via distance learning. The master course I chose enabled me to embrace the science behind education, and at the same time it raised my awareness on the particular modalities of distance learning, an approach that’s new in Africa, particularly in Senegal.”

“Field days”

According to the country’s National Agency of Statistics and Demography, in 2013 the number of farming households in Senegal stood at 755,559. Moreover, agriculture employs 69 per cent of the active population in Senegal and supports nearly two thirds of the country’s (still mostly rural) population. So it’s no coincidence that in 2015, two years after obtaining her master’s degree, Ndeye Amy Kebe Sylla came up with the idea for Jokalante; an atypical communications company that develops innovative communication strategies, notably targeted at encouraging behavioural change and development in the fields of agriculture, nutrition and animal welfare. “Jokalante is a platform set up by a consortium of international organisations within the framework of the project TIC Mbay (TIC refers to agriculture, in Wolof). We promote innovative solutions to challenges in agriculture via radio spots and telephone messages,” explained the founder. The platform’s distinguishing features? The good word is broadcast in one of the five most widely spoken languages in Senegal and interactivity is Jokalante’s golden rule. Listeners are invited to share opinions and discuss experiences with the widest audience possible. The company’s current activities reach 11 regions of Senegal through community radio stations, more than 50,000 people via telephone and just over a million listeners thanks to the radio broadcasts. Jokalante is also collaborating with USAID Senegal on the prestigious New Alliance ICT Extension programme.

Between last November and January, following harvest and before wintering, Jokalante used telephone and radio spots to promote the benefits of khétakh, or balls of millet that farmers tend to chuck away after the harvest, when actually they can be used as fertiliser for the fields. “When spread out over the soil and left until wintering begins, this organic matter significantly increases the fertility of the soil, and farmers don’t need to pay a penny for it. Some elders know of this traditional practice, but it has been forgotten. And since the peasant only embraces that which he sees for himself, or learns from his peers, we decided to organise interviews and radio spots in the local language, as well as “field days” in collaboration with partner farmers’ organisations, whereby we visited farms that were practising the technique. We broadcast these visits on local radio of course!”

A burgeoning hub of information

Along with her five employees, it’s safe to say that there’s never an idle moment for Ndeye Amy Kebe Sylla! At 33, she’s already thinking of extending Jokalante’s scope into The neighbouring Gambia via a programme to promote good nutritional habits among young children. “Agriculture is at the core of our activities: it’s the key to development in Senegal, and in every African country. But the autonomy of farmers is an important issue, which is why we’re working on developing technology that’s easy to implement for them, and to set up a dialogue with them. We’re working on the idea of launching a web radio broadcast and a large-scale information platform to share our experience. We’d like to expand our activities into the sub-region, get a foothold there.” To get the word out, Jokalante places women at the core of its information network, and encourages them to lead debates. Proof of its dynamism, the company recently participated in an animal welfare campaign in partnership with a British NGO, and is currently organising awareness-raising campaigns on climate among farmers and fishers across the whole of Senegal. May the team have every success!

 

http://jokalante.com/

 

The story behind the project Saúde Criança (Child Health in Portuguese) took off in the mid 90s in Brazil when a young woman decided that enough was enough with the country’s disappointing public health system. Working at the paediatric ward in Hospital da Lagoa, Rio de Janeiro, Dr. Vera Cordeiro saw the same tragedies day in day out. Children were being admitted to the hospital, undergoing treatment and being sent home only to turn up a a few days later in an even worse condition than before. Tragically, a few of these children even died upon their return to their local community.

In order to understand this cycle, Vera took to the favelas to really get to know the reality of these children. She soon realized that their needs went well beyond just medical care. Most of her patients at the hospital came from vulnerable communities and lacked access to basic sanitary conditions, food and housing. Vera quickly understood that their well-being needed to be monitored outside of the hospital doors. It was this motive that pushed the creation of Saúde Criança in 1991; an institute to not only promote the health but also the social inclusion of the most vulnerable members of society.

Driven by volunteer workers, the institution started off with humble beginnings and without a fixed methodology but with the primary purpose of always putting the children’s well-being of their work. It was also necessary to take care of the family and the child’s carers and to attend to all of their immediate needs.

Dietician Cristiana Velloso was one of the volunteers to embrace Vera’s cause. When she started to learn more about the institution as a whole, she wanted to get more involved and took up a postgraduate course in social responsibility and project management. While the project was gaining traction and methodology, Cristiana became coordinator, and then operating manager, and, since 2014, she has been CEO of Saúde Criança.  

“I believe that we do more than help families. We transform lives,” said Cristiana, speaking about the current scope of the initiative. There are already four licensed units in Rio de Janeiro and the organization also has an established presence in Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte.

Cristina upholds that the volunteers working for Saúde Criança are its main asset: “They are indispensible, some give us a grant; others help in other diverse ways. We have someone who offers consultancy, appointments and even, donations of medicine and supplies for the training of the children’s families and their insertion in the labour market,” she said.

The project in Rio de Janeiro helps 250 families monthly reaching a total of more than 1,00 people. “In all units, including the ones inspired by the methodology of the project but working under different names, we believe that more than 70 thousand lives have been transformed,” said the CEO.

The results achieved by Saúde Criança are recognized internationally. However, the organization still has big challenges ahead. It has not been immune to the increasing inequality as the result of the economic and political context in Brazil over the last few years. “It became more difficult for families to have access to health care, to basic procedures such as appointments with specialist doctors, exams, required surgeries, and even, shortage of medicines that were before supplied by the government”, remembers Cristiana. Another problem is funding. It became more problematic to get funding with the crisis, which had a great impact in Saúde Criança. “Last year, we spent more than we brought in, and this year there’s no indication of improvement,” said Cristina.

This complicated backdrop does not discourage Cristiana, Vera and all the net support of Saúde Criança, hoping that more organisations and companies would understand the amplitude to deal with the subject of public health in the country.

 

How one young woman’s experience of applying to university inspired her to improve the system for future generations

Diana Voutyrakou has represented Greece at the World Robotic Olympiad several times, and she is one of the few females attending the School of Electrical Engineering at the National Technical University in Athens. Despite this impressive track record, she wanted to do more to challenge stereotypes against women in the sciences and close the gender gap in STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics).

So in 2016, at age 21, she and a fellow student, Pavlos Simentis, co-founded Unique Minds, an NGO with a mission to inform high school pupils about their academic options and help them make the right decisions about what to study.

“Unique Minds was created because of the social stereotypes I experienced as a [female] high school student preparing my university application, in combination with the inability of the system to bring out the best in each pupil,” said Voutyrakou. “Though I was certain of my choice [of subject], it proved very hard to convince those around me about it. Everyone – family, friends, teachers – tried to get me to apply for other subjects, so that I’d be sure to get accepted somewhere.” She also felt that many other students in her university program did not share her enthusiasm for it. “They had chosen the school because their parents were engineers, or because they thought they could do well professionally and financially.”

Unique Minds fills an important gap in Greek education policy. Mary Papayanni was a high school senior when she found out about the organization. “I heard about them randomly, through Facebook,” she said, noting that her school did not offer academic orientation services. “At the Unique Minds event in Peristeri, I learned a lot about marketing as a course of study. It is important to ask people close to your age about what things are really like in each department. My fellow students at school and at after-school tutorials picked their university subjects based on the available job prospects during the years of economic crisis.”

Unique Minds’ activities fall into four categories. A Unibuddies platform connects pupils with students via online chats; YouTube videos feature student volunteers discussing their schools; UNIque Days events present university programs to high school pupils with interactive workshops; and professional orientation seminars highlight the importance of basing university applications on personal interests. Since late 2016, the organization has reached nearly 3,000 students through its live events, and its videos have attracted more than 21,000 views.

Voutyrakou believes that better information for high schoolers on the opportunities and challenges that come with each academic discipline is vital. But she knows that information alone won’t solve the problem of massive over-representation of men in STEM classes. “It is a problem that begins in the first grades of primary school,” she said, noting that in Greece, “the perception is shaped that girls should follow a theoretical academic direction, or study law or pedagogy, whereas boys should go into STEM.”

She feels the solution is purely a matter of education, “offering equal opportunities at school, encouraging girls to get into physics and math, familiarizing all pupils with the full range of prospects out there. People should be made aware that girls are no less innately suited to STEM than boys.”

 

uniqueminds.com

Marcella Hansch Wants to Save the Oceans

Marcella Hansch is afraid of fish, but she loves diving nonetheless. When fish swim toward her, she begins to breathe more quickly, causing her oxygen tank to deplete rapidly. But during a 2013 dive in Cape Verde it wasn’t a fish that alarmed her but a plastic bag.This startle led to Hansch (who was studying architecture in Aachen) to come up with an idea for her university thesis project — a concept that could ultimately solve one of our planet’s biggest environmental problems: plastic pollution.

Her underwater encounter left a lasting impression. Oceanic researchers estimate that between 4.8 and 12.7 million tons of plastic waste wind up in the world’s oceans and seas each year. “If this continues, there will be more plastic in the ocean by 2050 than fish,” she said. For her project, the German set out to conceive a platform to filter plastic waste from the water. “I wanted to do something that would be really fun for me,” she said.

Thesis projects are generally not ever implemented. But Hansch’s project may have a future., A team is currently participating in an effort to bring it to life, after all it would have been a shame for her idea to just disappear into a filing cabinet.

She becomes quite animated when explaining how her project started to take shape and how it became increasingly scientific — even though she said she is “more of an artistic person” and never really had much of a scientific bent. For this project, though, Hansch dared to go beyond the boundaries of her own field of study. She attended lectures on engineering, calculated ocean currents and learned about algae. The result was a system that functions as a closed loop and produces no waste at all.

Microbeads, also known as microplastic, are lighter than water so they tend to be found on or near the surface, though ocean currents can drag the bits of plastic as deep as 30 meters (100 feet) beneath the surface. Hansch’s calculations indicated that a bulbous shape and a system of underwater channels would calm the ocean currents, allowing the plastic particles to rise and be skimmed off the water surface by the platform.

Hansch speaks quickly and gesticulates with her hands as she explains her idea. She has presented her concept countless times — at her university, at conferences and in front of scientists. “The molecular structure of the plastic pieces that are filtered out of the water have been destroyed by salt water and cannot be reasonably recycled,” she explained. But Hansch still wanted to find a way to use the waste.

Her original plan called for the plastic waste to be run through a plasma gasification process to convert it to hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The hydrogen could then be used as an energy source for the fuel cells that power the platform. Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide could be used as a nutrient for the algae cultures grown on the platform. The algae biomass would then serve as the raw material for environmentally friendly, algae bioplastics.

While she kept the idea of a closed loop, not all of Hansch’s approaches proved to be realistic. The idea of plasma gasification has since been abandoned. Her team of researchers is currently investigating other possible solutions. “But even those should create hydrogen and carbon dioxide,” Hansch said, adding that the search for a practicable solution is ongoing.

“Does that make sense?” Hansch asks after she finishes her explanation. It does — a conclusion by the many loved one who’ve supported her so far.

After graduating, Hansch began her career as an architect. During her lunch break one day, she visited the Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management at RWTH Aachen University, where she presented her project. “I thought they would surely laugh at me,” she said. But nobody laughed. Instead, there was widespread interest in her work and ideas.

It was followed by invitations and the institute called on other students to do related thesis papers that could help Hansch advance the project. More people became involved.

For a long time, progress was painstakingly slow. At one point, Hansch even came close to throwing in the towel, but then she agreed to give one last presentation. It could have been the last speech she ever gave on the subject, but during the delivery, she had an epiphany and realized just how important it had become to her. “It became clear to me that I couldn’t just leave it behind,” she said.

A short time later, Hansch and her fellow campaigners started a non-profit organization called Pacific Garbage Screening. The NGO is composed of roughly 35 members, including engineers, environmental scientists and biologists. Together they are working towards the day when the platform can finally be deployed. They perform research on a voluntary basis and cover most of the costs out of their own pockets.

Although Hansch states it’s difficult to set a schedule for the project, she hopes that all the research underpinning it will be completed within the next five years.

Hansch said she is also taking pains personally to produce less waste. “I don’t run around lecturing people, but I do use humor to try to point a few things out.”

 

http://pacific-garbage-screening.com/

“A diet that’s good for both body and planet? It starts here.”

Geneviève Moreau endorses a health-conscious and sustainable diet, that’s good for both our bodies and the planet. Convinced of its virtues, former GP Moreau, 52, now runs training courses for professionals and individuals at her institute.

In the eyes of Geneviève Moreau, a general physician by training, food is our main medicine. While she was still practising and paying home visits to treat a patient for a throat infection or flu, it wasn’t uncommon for her to take a peep inside the fridge to get an idea of the household’s eating habits. “It all began when my eldest was little,” recalled the mother of three. “One day, he swallowed a peanut and went into anaphylactic shock. Fortunately, I had everything that was needed to save him to hand, but I was curious to understand what was happening in his metabolism that had made him allergic.” She went on several training courses, that taught nutrition with benefits for both health and the environment. “In all my training to become a doctor, just eight hours of teaching were dedicated to nutrition,” Moreau lamented.

“Plating up health”

She began to combine her patients’ regular treatment with suggestions for vitamins to take, along with omega 3 and even entire menus. “Nowadays this approach can almost seem banal, but at the time, far from it. When I was growing up, people didn’t care about what they ate; we ate meat, chips, sauces full of cream…”

One day, one of Moreau’s patients said to her, “Your menus do me so much good, but when I go on holiday I go back to eating other foods and I get sick again. You ought to train the chefs at restaurants.” Moreau decided to set up the Institut-SIIN, or Scientific Institute for Intelligent Nutrition, with the help of one of her nutrition teachers and that of a scientific academy. Founded in 2009, the Institut is offering a way forward. “In the past, we didn’t use to make a strong connection between a healthy diet and the planet. We didn’t pay attention to the environmental costs of our eating habits, nor the fact that many contemporary first world health issues (numerous types of cancer, obesity, cardiovascular conditions, neuropsychiatric disorders, food allergies, attention disorders…) are so closely linked with what we eat. Medical professionals were aware that eating habits needed to change, but they didn’t know how.” Moreau’s approach slowly began to gain recognition. Belgium’s King Baudouin Foundation awarded her a prize, and she was named an Ashoka Fellow (the world’s leading network of social entrepreneurs), thanks to which she received a three-year grant. Finally able to pay herself a salary, in 2016 Moreau gave up her medical practice to concentrate on her new calling.

Every consumer has the power to make a difference

Since setting up, Geneviève and her small team of 8 have trained 3,200 professionals (health professionals, as well as chefs and cooks…) – in Belgium, France, Switzerland, Canada and the UK – who go on to become ambassadors of the program for the individuals they care for, advise or feed…* Now a reference in its sector, the Institut is regularly consulted by brands that want to launch a new healthy product, or by government officials working on a new law. “What motivates me is being able to teach consumers to make the right choices, whenever they can. To buy an industrially-farmed chicken that was badly fed and stuffed with antibiotics – harmful to both health and the planet, or an organic chicken that was raised in good conditions? Purchase a processed, pre-packaged cake that’s full of food colouring, or make one at home with flour, eggs, sugar, butter and milk? Every one of us can be a change-maker. Agribusiness is ready to change, if the public asks for it. If consumers started to only buy healthy types of biscuit, brands wouldn’t produce any other type! Sadly, to read and understand the labels properly (which is indispensable!) and develop the right habits, you virtually need a university degree!”    

A Herculean task

Moreau is still buzzing with new ideas: she wants better labelling on healthy products, and to work with the European Commission – as well as Belgium’s Public Centres for Social Welfare (CPAS). “It makes no sense to have to pay more for healthy products – why should unrefined sugar cost more than refined sugar? No-one should be denied the chance to make the right choice.” There will be no slowing down, then. “I’m glad I chose this path. I feel like I’ve got my first foot on the ladder, but things are not progressing as fast as they should. There’s so much more to be done to change mentalities. It’s a Herculean task.”

 

www.siin-nutrition.com

 

*An e-course open to all is also available at www.siin-nutrition.com.

 

Overcoming an eating disorder can often take years of struggle. Having lived through it herself and with the help of two apps, Ekaterina Karabasheva hopes to help people suffering from or at risk of developing the condition.

It started when Ekaterina was 16. She began by leaving just a little on her plate. She cut out butter, steered clear of sweets, and avoided all calorific drinks. As time went by, the number of foods missing from her diet grew – until she could barely bring herself to eat an apple without feeling guilty.

Ekaterina Karabasheva had always been the perfect daughter: kind, she did well at school and was successful in everything she set her mind to. Yet when this Bulgarian native set about achieving the “perfect figure”, she foundered: anorexia dominated her life for half a decade.

Hundreds of thousands of people live with an eating disorder

In Germany, the lives of several hundreds of thousands are dictated by an eating disorder. According to the Federal Office for Health Education, around 1.5 percent of women and just 0.5 percent of men are affected, based on recorded cases alone.

Counting calories, swearing off foods, starving yourself, obsessing about food, feelings of guilt, self-loathing, over-exercising, binging, taking laxatives, vomiting – most sufferers find their entire routine is at the mercy of the illness. Many isolate themselves from friends and family to avoid the embarrassment of eating around others. Sufferers can waste years of their life in this way.

Ekaterina was relatively quick to realise that anorexia would not solve her lack of self-esteem. At 19, she made the first attempts to overcome her eating disorder. Now, eight years later, she has regained control of her life, completed her studies, recently become a mother, and committed herself to projects she hopes will enable her to help other sufferers.

How sufferers are documenting their battles on Instagram

Sufferers are documenting their battles on Instagram under #edrecovery (ED = eating disorder). There are already more than 3 million #edrecovery posts, mainly photos of food. A plate of noodles, toast, a tub of Ben & Jerry’s, pancakes with Nutella, omelettes, tacos, muesli – to non-sufferers, battling an eating disorder must seem, quite literally, like a piece of cake.

But at the beginning of recovery, every meal is a battle. Take for example the caption @kams_recovery has added to a photo of her ice cream: “Recovery win! First time I’ve enjoyed ice cream without purging in over a year!”

This and the millions of other posts like it on Instagram are a popular and fundamental element of a behavioural approach to treatment: keeping a food diary. For months, Ekaterina documented each meal she ate. She kept a record not just of what she ate but how she felt about it. Did she feel like a loser for eating a bread roll? Or did she perhaps feel positive about nourishing her body? This was important because it enabled Ekaterina to root out the connections she had developed between eating and negative emotions over the years and ultimately dispel them.

The idea for the app emerged from her own recovery

When it came to her food diary, Ekaterina was faced with a problem: would she feel comfortable pulling out an A4 pad at uni, at the canteen or in a café and noting down her feelings in full view of others? It was tricky. As a result, she often wouldn’t document her meals until later in the evening – and by then, she would have long forgotten how she felt at the time.

Instagram presents a good alternative. Food bloggers take photos of their food and then write a little about it, and so keeping a food diary becomes an unobtrusive part of their daily lives. But what if sufferers do not want to out themselves publicly? What if some clueless person sees one of the images, writes a stupid comment underneath (“Wow, that ice cream is huge!”) and upsets the sufferer?

Ekaterina has developed an ideal solution, combining the best of Instagram and an A4 pad: the “Jourvie” app. Using their mobile phones, “Recovery Warriors” can easily document their meals, including situation and emotional state, save them and discuss them with their therapists if necessary. Photos can also be added. The app is free – Ekaterina has no commercial motive.

Ekaterina, now 27, said, “For me, it was important to transform my negative experiences with this illness into something positive, to give sufferers the tools to overcome their condition”.

The app hopes to prevent eating disorders from developing

Last year, in collaboration with AOK Nordost, Ekaterina was able to develop and launch a second app: “Elamie”. This app is designed to help parents and paediatricians recognize the signs that a person is at risk of developing an eating disorder. Certain personality traits – such as the perfectionism that Ekaterina experienced – can point to a potential lack of self-esteem or an eating disorder.

Parents use the app to document their child’s behaviour for a week according to specific criteria. This data enables doctors to determine whether a child requires observation or treatment. “We are pleased to be able to work on promoting early recognition of eating disorders together with AOK Nordost and doctors. We’re stronger together!”

Eating disorders concern all of us

While every eating disorder is complex and highly personal in its own way, there are factors in our society which encourage them. These might be the thin, size-zero models that the media has spent decades holding up as the aesthetic ideal, or the economic pressure to perform, or the increasing attention given to airbrushed photos on social media, combined with a growing trend towards isolation in “real” life. The over-abundance of food on offer also provides fertile ground for eating disorders to develop. That’s why it’s our job as a society to help fight eating disorders. We can do this by ensuring that we do not exclude sufferers, instead demonstrating that we respect and believe in them. No one with an eating disorder is a lost cause. Everyone can win their battle with an eating disorder – just like Ekaterina.

 

http://www.jourvie.com/en