EMpower Participates on the “Girls Mean Business” Panel at Credit Suisse

Executive Vice President of EMpower, Cynthia Steele, presented a case study of grantee partner Lua Nova to an expert panel at the corporate launch of Plan UK's 'Because I am a Girl: The State of the World's Girls' 2009 report 'Girls in the Global Economy: Adding it all up'. The report emphasizes the importance of investing in girls, for the sake of the girls themselves, but also as the key to ending the inter-generational poverty that blights so many societies.

The event was co-hosted by Credit Suisse and Plan UK, in London on September 17th and chaired by Sir David Bell, Director of Pearson, Chairman of the FT. It also featured Cherie Blair, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women, as the keynote speaker and drew 159 participants from the business and nonprofit sectors.

Three other case studies were presented: The Adolescent Girls Initiative (World Bank and Nike), GOAL (Standard Chartered), and the Youth Career Initiative (a program of the International Business Leaders Forum).

With EMpower's support, Lua Nova in Brazil is training adolescent mothers in Sao Paulo state to earn an income and launch their own businesses through an innovative model using a business school approach they developed. The expert panel remarked on this case study's analysis of challenges, honesty about learning and lessons, importance of esteem building, and the importance of the vulnerable population served (adolescent mothers in Brazil, many with drug dependencies.)