“When a woman has a dream, she usually turns it into a project and copes with its problems in a very concrete and direct way. That’s exactly the approach the Yves Rocher Foundation is looking for.” These are the words of Marie Anne Gasnier, sposkeswoman for the Terre de Femmes Award.
The Yves Rocher Foundation created the award Terre de Femmes fifteen years ago with the goal of supporting the women in their fight for a sustainable development and the protection of biodiversity.
So far the Yves Rocher Foundation has awarded 350 women and their projects.
The projects can really look like utopic ideas at first and this is exactly where the concrete female approach becomes the keypoint.
Ozgül Oztürk, a Turkish architect, dreamt of bringing the old village of his father, Nimri, back to life.
It looked like a nostalgic dream: the village had started a slow but continuous process of depopulation and abandon since the 50s.
She started studying the area and its resources, she met with local people and networked with cities in the district.
They created an association and even planed 60,000 pine trees to help the agricultural recover.
What happened?
The social and economic environment has restrenghtened so far and the community has now launched a cultural festival.
The award categories of the Yves Rocher Foundation
The Yves Rocher Foundation awards four different project categories.
- Plant for the planet:
The Yves Rocher Foundation aims at planting 100,000,000 trees by 2020.
The website calculator shows an amount of 63,415,917 trees planted so far.
We are almost there, we are improving our planet and its biodiversity.
- Photography, people and Nature
If an image is worth more than 100 words, supporting the photographs’ projects is a capital way to- educate
- inform
- take action
- Plants and biodiversity
Improving and protecting our planet’s biodiversity means protecting our life and the natural resources it holds.
Every endangered animal or plant is a risk for our life.
- Terre de Femmes
Women and the environment’s protection: the Yves Rocher Foundation stands by side of the projects of environmental protection where women play a central role.
Do not be shy or reluctant: the Yves Rocher Foundation is looking for new projects.
Give your dream a chance and apply for 2016 award by contacting terredefemmes.france@yrnet.com
Cover image by Providence Doucet, via unsplash