Morocco, Aveda supports Argan forest
preservation and helps families and communities through increased sustainable
product of Argan,” Bennett says. Aveda
also sources babassu oil from a group of
women in the eastern Amazonian region
of Brazil, ensuring in the process that
local women are given fair wages for
their work.
“Our goal is to understand our
supply chain from ‘Soil to Bottle’ and
continue to create equitable business
opportunities for traditional and indigenous people,” Bennett says.
Ending Hunger for Women
Nutrition, or the lack thereof in some
poverty- or conflict-stricken nations, is
an issue that has long plagued mothers
and their children. Based on the most
recent data released by the United
Nation’s Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) in late 2010, about
925 million people around the world are
undernourished (see table on page 38).
With this reality in mind, Project
Iris—a fashion clothing company that
takes pride in giving back—decided to
address world hunger by partnering with
World Food Program USA, the largest
humanitarian agency whose mission is
to fight against world hunger.
“When we created Project Iris, we
knew we wanted the brand to have a
charitable component,” says Marketing
Director Steve Loring. “Every five percent
of wholesale profit of Project Iris apparel
is donated to World Food Program
which in turn uses the donation to
provide nutritious meals to mothers and
their young children throughout impoverished countries like Guatemala and
Honduras.”
To promote both their product and
According to a United Nation’s Population Fund global study, more
than 2/3 of the world’s unpaid work is done by women—the
equivalent of $11 trillion or almost 50 percent of the world’s gross
domestic product (GDP).
FOR MORE ABOUT
these companies and organizations
empowering women, visit:
kumaniessentials.com, transfairusa.org,
aveda.com, hopeforwomen.com,
projectirisclothing.com, usa.wfp.org,
dermalogica.com, kiva.org and
joinFITE.org.
mission, the company—strategically
launched during World Food Day last
year—intensified its marketing initiatives
through media press releases, giving
introductory packages to customers
which included samples and catalogs as
well as using in-store informational
signage and postcards to promote to
retailers.
“Project Iris is committed to the fight
against world hunger. We measure our
program’s success by the number of
meals we’re able to provide as a direct
result of Project Iris’s merchandise sales,”
he says. To date, Project Iris has provided over 12,500 nutritious meals to
impoverished mothers and children, a
solid start given that the program was
launched only five months ago.
Investing in Women’s
Dreams
Embracing a “pay-it-forward” concept,
Dermalogica’s women empowerment
program called FITE (Financial
Independence Through Entrepreneurship)
is about investing in the financial inde-
Through Project Iris's partnership with World Food
Program USA, more mothers and their children
around the world are provided with proper nutrition.
March/April 2011
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