Ashoka Fellows tells their stories at the Women’s Forum on Economy and Society

Women’s Forum on Economy and Society, takes place in France’s Deauville everyyear, hosted Ashoka Fellows this year to talk about social entrepreneurship and social change in the world. Women’s Forum, promoting women’s vision on the key social and economic issues of our era, is one of the biggest event where women from business and social sector get together to exchange ideas and network. The Forum also hosts Cartier Women’s Initiatives Award.

Ashoka Fellows from different countries were invited as “Women Actors Leading for Change”. Sandra Aguebor, the Founder of Lady Mechanic Initiative from Nigeria, Vera Cordeiro, the Founder & CEO of Associação Saúde de Criança Renascer from Brazil, Selma Demirelli, the President of Water Lily Women’s Environment and Cultural Cooperative from Turkey, Jeroo Bilmoora, the Executive Director of Eflatoun and Hasina Kharbhih, the Executive Director of Impulse from India shared their stories and vision with the participants. The Moderator for this session was journalist Françoise Schöller from France 3 Television Channel.

A special exhibition on these women also took place during the from.

At another session, moderated by Ann Harrison from Time Magazine with the headline, Assessing the impact of social entrepreneurship where Vera Cordeiro and Selma Demirelli talked about how
Social entrepreneurship uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to produce social change. Cordeiro and Demirelli discussed how their performance has not been measured in terms of profit and return, but rather through impact on society.