The campaign's main purpose is to raise awareness for reducing inequality between women and men in the Brazilian labor market

Neoenergia launches today (11.16) the campaign Let Her Inspire You, in celebration of International Women's Entrepreneurship Day - date created in 2014 by the United Nations (UN) to promote the reduction of gender inequality in the labor market, occurring simultaneously in 153 countries. The group, together with Neoenergia Institute, which has been standing out strongly in its contribution to Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5 - Gender Equity) - one of the goals of 2030 Agenda -, will promote a week dedicated to the topic on its social networks, with a program including a live broadcast on YouTube, four Podcast episodes and posts and stories on Instagram to share amazing stories of women entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs.

“Our objective is to give more visibility to this date, because we understand that reducing gender inequality in the labor market is still a global challenge, and a bigger one in Brazil. Our group, together with Neoenergia Institute, has a beautiful story in this SDG 5 journey. We created the first School of Electricians for Women in Brazil, in 2017; we already have 43% of women in corporate teams and, in the executive board, our female presence now reaches 44%, and we are working to increase this representativeness, with actions to encourage intrapreneurship", says Renata Chagas, CEO of Neoenergia Institute. The executive also reinforces that, “in 2021, the company became the first company to support exclusively the Brazilian women's soccer team and the national club championship. In addition, this year at Neoenergia Institute, we launched the first edition of the Impactô Social Acceleration Program for Women and created the Inspirar (Inspire) award, an initiative to recognize women entrepreneurs in the areas of art and culture in peripheral communities in the country. Therefore, celebrating this date is something very special for us, but also important to inspire and encourage other organizations in this cause", concludes Chagas.

The idea of opening more room to female entrepreneurship was also driven by the analysis of Neoenergia Institute team on relevant data on female entrepreneurship in Brazil. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor – responsible for the main research on entrepreneurship in the world -, Brazil reached 30 million female entrepreneurs in 2020, a number equivalent to almost half of the entrepreneurial market in the country (48.7%). In the study carried out by Rede Mulher Empreendedora, women employ more women, creating a circular and positive movement, keeping 83% of female employees in their businesses, while in businesses led by men, this percentage drops to 63%.

"It caught our attention that, despite the challenges of the pandemic, women sought entrepreneurial solutions, generating growth, economic development in their regions, and, consequently, a better income distribution, but, as I always say, more needs to be done. This data helped us to see that we were on the right path, but we needed to move forward. And in this direction, we think about the creation of the Let Her Inspire You campaign, as yet another date included in Neoenergia's agenda of actions, bringing these stories that have made a difference, both of female intrapreneurs at Neoenergia and those from the projects supported by us, bringing more knowledge to be shared with other women", highlights Renata Chagas.

Check out Neoenergia's agenda and channels:

Live Broadcast #DeixaElaTeInspirar (subscribe to our YouTube channel) on 11/19 at 7:00 pm, with moderation by Sônia Araripe, Publisher, Director and Entrepreneur of Plurale Magazine, one of the largest Sustainability publications in the country.

Podcast #DeixaElaTeInspirar: Follow the first of the four episodes on our podcast channel, where Neoenergia female intrapreneurs tell their life and career stories. Just click the link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3a0EtYsamI3cJ8NQwQpvp7?si=776fe52c391a4a89

Impactô Women and Inspirar Award

This year, Instituto Neoenergia launched two projects to value female leadership initiatives: Impactô Women and Inspirar Award. Impactô is a social acceleration project carried out in partnership with Instituto Ekloos, which for the first time had an edition exclusively focused on NGOs and social businesses having women as their main managers, founders or co-founders, benefiting institutions in five states: Bahia, Goiás, Minas Gerais, Paraná and Piauí.

Inspirar Award was created to recognize women who promote social transformation through art and culture in peripheral communities located in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Baixada Fluminense (RJ) and the state of Pernambuco (PE). Gender empowerment projects were awarded, such as Redes da Maré, dedicated to producing knowledge through actions to formulate rights and public policies to improve the lives of the 140,000 residents of the 16 favelas in Maré, one of the largest communities in Rio de Janeiro. Other projects that stood out were Boi Mandigueira, of art, culture and racial identity, in Recife, and the Women's Association of Nazaré da Mata, from Zona da Mata Pernambucana, which works for the rights, desires, dreams of women and in confrontation to domestic violence.

"We seek to demonstrate our commitment and effort to achieving SDG 5, inspiring other companies and our value chain to undertake initiatives to reduce gender inequality, and to take a closer look at the numerous challenges that women face in the labor market", says Neoenergia Institute's CEO, Renata Chagas.

Intrapreneurship in Neoenergia

Neoenergia seeks to inspire new initiatives from the private sector, government and civil society to create opportunities and increase female representativeness. The company has an in-house diversity program focused on promoting a work environment of inclusion, respect for diversity, empowerment and combating prejudice. Human Resources processes were revised, and the company started to promote more inclusive selection processes and train leaders to manage diversity. Today, Neoenergia has 43% of women in its corporate teams and, in its executive board, the proportion of female presence is 44%.

The company has adopted solutions to expand intrapreneurship. In 2017, it was a pioneer in creating the first School of Electricians for Women in the country, an initiative internationally recognized through a case study published by WeEmpower, a UN Women program with the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the European Union. The document points out Neoenergia's School of Electricians for Women as a role model for one of the Women Empowerment Principles (WEP), in promoting education and professional development for women.

In June of this year, Neoenergia entered into an agreement with the Brazilian Soccer Confederation (CBF) and became the first company in the country to sponsor exclusively the Brazilian women's soccer team and the national club championship. This partnership reflects the company's commitment to equalizing historical differences between men and women in the labor market, generating better opportunities.

The company also seeks to encourage local female entrepreneurs in their businesses. One example is the support to Associação Comunitária das Louceiras Negras da Serra do Talhado, an entity comprising women from Comunidade Quilombola da Serra do Talhado Urbana, in Santa Luzia (PB), which produces pottery pieces, such as pans and pots. Neoenergia's initiative provided several publicity pieces aimed to provide more visibility to the work done by the artisans, as well as an entrepreneurship training. The community is located near the Chafariz Wind Complex and Luzia solar power plants.