The Kering Foundation celebrates 10 years of safeguarding women
How do we continue to combat violence against women? That was the question on everyone’s minds this week, at 40 rue de Sèvres, Paris – home of the Kering Foundation, which marked its 10-year anniversary on Tuesday, with a special drinks and dinner reception co-hosted by Kering’s CEO and chairman, François-Henri Pinault, and the foundation’s executive director, Céline Bonnaire.
Since 2008, the Kering Foundation has been actively engaged in helping to end violence against women (which affects one in three women worldwide) through awareness-raising campaigns across the globe and partnerships with local NGOs and social entrepreneurs, many of whom were in attendance at the cocktail-dress event. “For the past 10 years, we have contributed to weakening the taboo around violence against women by openly addressing it,” declared Pinault in his speech.
In an interview with PORTER, Bonnaire highlighted some of the organization’s key achievements – including the Maison des Femmes haven in Saint-Denis, which offers medical, psychological and emotional support to vulnerable women – and the foundation’s efforts to combat domestic violence in the workplace, in partnership with national bodies such as D.i.Re in Italy and NNEDV in the United States.
“For the past 10 years, we have contributed to weakening the taboo around violence against women by openly addressing it
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Looking to the future, Bonnaire also outlined the foundation’s new regional strategy, focusing on sexual violence (predominantly on university campuses) in the US, domestic violence in China (where it remains a taboo subject) and domestic violence and female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom.
Crucially, the foundation will also be targeting Generation Z. As Bonnaire pointed out: “It is the first generation to live so much of their lives online, more than 10 hours per day, and they are direct victims of cyberbullying. Via #IDontSpeakHater and IDontSpeakHater.org, [we are calling] for this young generation to defend their peers from online harassment.”
She added: “I truly believe it is [this] generation that can make change happen. Both girls and boys have a different approach to gender and could make a big difference in eliminating gender inequality.”
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