"I believe we have to use our leadership
position to bring about changes and inspire men and women to desire a fairer
world". This is
what Renata Chagas, Neoenergia Institute’s CEO advocates. Leading initiatives
that seek to encourage the reduction of gender inequality, the executive was
the first interviewee in the podcast series #DeixaElaTeInspirar (Let her Inspire You), in which Neoenergia female
intraprenerus tell their life and career stories, already available on Spotify. Under her leadership since 2015, the Institute executes projects that
leverage actions carried out by women and, this year, held the first editions
of Impactô Women – for social acceleration – and the Inspirar Award – which
recognized initiatives led by women in Pernambuco and Rio of January.
In the interview, Renata Chagas states that
companies have a fundamental social role in this process of change for more
gender equality. Check out the main excerpts:
Female entrepreneurship represents an important way
to ensure financial independence for women, reduce vulnerability to violence
and even promote social transformations in peripheral Brazilian communities.
How do you see this process for women today in Brazil, is there room for it?
There's room and we're going to fill it. But, to
fill it, it needs to be talked about, discussed, debated, it needs to be on the
agenda. This requires a society that sees that gender inequality is a reality
and that it needs to be changed. Only from the knowledge of reality we can move
to change something. That's why it's important to bring up the topic, which is
what we're doing here. Bringing data, evidence, personal experiences, reports
from other women. Thinking about initiatives for women. Educating our children
so that they see differences exist, of course, and they are healthy, but that
the basic right must be equal for boys and girls, men and women.
You have an important position in a large company,
which is Neoenergia. How do you, a woman, assess that Neoenergia Institute's projects
contribute to this gender entrepreneurship?
When I say that society needs to mobilize to change
reality, I am also including companies, institutes and foundations, government
authorities, citizens, everyone. We must understand that companies also play a
social role. And, at Neoenergia Institute, which has the role of being
Neoenergia's social action arm, we have been thinking more and more about
projects that place gender entrepreneurship at the center of the wheel. All of
our projects directly contribute to one of the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) that we classify as priority, but we also have cross-cutting SDGs, and
Gender Equality is one of them. We, who are in the communities, looking at the
most vulnerable, see the struggle and strength of women on a daily basis, and
we want this to be a driver for increasing the reach of projects, for building
more powerful networks. We have also prioritized the Institute's partnerships
with organizations led by women, such as Andréa Gomides' Ekloos. Some impact
businesses that went through Impactô are also acting as our service providers
for communication work, for example. We aim to build networks with these
women.
Talking
about communities, based on your experience, how do you believe that
female entrepreneurship promotes effective impacts in these locations?
In the
most vulnerable communities, women play central roles in caring for the home,
children and food. On the other hand, they suffer from abandonment, from the
lonely upbringing of children, from domestic violence. This does not only
happen among the poorest, it is an illusion to think so. But, as the
Institute's mission is to transform the lives of the most vulnerable people,
then empowering women in communities means providing them financial
independence, autonomy, reducing their dependence on the husband who is often
their aggressor.
At PLIS
– Social Impact Leaders Program, we met Sarah, she was one of the social
leaders who participated in PLIS 2021 and who founded Aya Education, an online
English school designed and nurtured for black people. She started her journey
in social entrepreneurship because of her concern about being the only black
woman in the environments she accessed because she spoke English. In 2013,
focusing on teaching black people, she developed her own methodology.
At
Coralizar, we have female scientists at the forefront of innovative coral
restoration research, such as Dr. Paula Braga, from the Federal University of
Pernambuco. In Flyways project, Juliana Bosi, a woman, PhD in ecology,
evolution and conservation biology, she is the project coordinator since
2015.
There
is also the Women's Association of Nazaré da Mata, led by Eliane Rodrigues,
from Pernambuco. She conceived and founded Amunan, the first institution in the
Mata Norte of Pernambuco, to fight for the human rights of women. She still
lives in rural areas, works in the Rural Workers Union, lives with poor women
who have suffered from domestic violence, with physical violence prevailing and
the obligation to care for and raise their grandchildren, as their daughters
ended up working as maids in Recife . Initially, devising strategies for the
woman to leave the house and to express herself freely, without the threatening
look of her husband or partner, was a great challenge. Today, she has projects
in the area of building up women's financial autonomy, in culture.
Gender
equality is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the
UN in Agenda 2030. Do you believe these goals are important for companies and
society? For Neoenergia, through your Institute, what are the main actions?
I have
no doubt that the UN agenda encourages the whole world to think together about
the challenges and solutions required. It is not just an agenda for people, nor
just for companies, it is a collective agenda, and as such, it is expected that
it will have a better and broader reach and result as well. In the case of
Instituto Neoenergia, we have been developing projects in different pillars, such
as education, biodiversity, culture, social action, but all of them are
directly connected to the SDGs, and our challenge is increasingly to understand
how we can increase our contribution to the SDGs. They are at the core of all
our initiatives and projects.
The
presence of women in leadership positions is very important. For you, what is
the importance of your role and that of other executives as intrapreneurs at
Neoenergia? What are the benefits of increasing representativeness for the
company and inspiring young women in the company?
In a
job interview, in the last phase, the vice president of a multinational company
asked me the following question: you and your husband are in a comfortable
situation, he is a doctor, how can I be sure that you will not stop working
overnight to care for the children? It was a question so loaded with prejudice
that I was in shock. And at that moment, I decided that fighting for women's
equality would be my banner, so that other women would never hear it in the near
future. So, I believe we have to use our leadership position to bring about
changes and inspire men and women to desire a fairer world. Let's remember that
men still fill the majority of leadership positions in companies and there is
no, let's say, scientific reason for that. This is the result of a model of
society, centered on men, on the father who goes out to work and the mother who
takes care of the house and the children, which has been reflected in the
companies.
About
the market, what is the role of the private sector to encourage female
intrapreneurship within organizations? How does this movement reflect on the
external environment and, consequently, what are its benefits for the country's
social development?
Corporate Social Responsibility is for indoors
too, not just outside. In this sense, I believe the Human Resources area of
companies has a key role in promoting equal internal opportunities, in training
men and women, in promoting the agenda with events, debates, conversation
circles. Of course, all this must come from senior leadership, so it's not HR's
work alone, it needs to be a true agenda for the company, it needs to be part
of the strategy, it needs to come by example. Large companies dictate trends,
point out paths, so I think we can say that changes in companies end up
reflecting structural changes in society, yes.