45% of social entrepreneurs worldwide are women. The application of their ideas contributes to making our society safer, enjoyable and sustainable. We wanted, on March 8th, for International Women’s Day to be the opportunity to celebrate their creativity and to make them known by audiences. We want their stories to inspire everyone, women, and men. Teaming-up with MakeSense and AXA, Sparknews launched a complete program in three phases: identification of female social entrepreneurs in about 20 countries, mediatization of their stories and, for some, professional training in developing their business.
We launched our call to projects to spot female project leaders in November 2017 and it was shared in 15 countries thanks to an ecosystem specialized in social and women entrepreneurship. Ashoka, Willa (formerly Paris Pionnières), The Next Billion, Girl Rising, Global Entrepreneurship Monitor etc. are part of it. It allowed us to find over 280 projects by female social entrepreneurs. For International Women’s Day, the 21 media outlets from the alliance – among which women’s daily press or magazines such as Madame Figaro, The Asahi Shimbun, Spiegel Online and Women’s Era – published portraits of female entrepreneurs that had caught their attention.