Selected from an applicant pool of over 1000 projects, the finalists for 2012 come from 15 different countries. They all lead compagnies. UFFP met one of the finalists for Asia Pacific. Jeannie Javelosa comes from the Philippines and she owns retail stores called ECHOstore that brand for green and fair trade solutions. She was not the laureate of this edition and yet her company caught our attention and she is indeed a winner for us. Bringing the true spirit and philosophy of our webzine UFFP: Environment, Community, Hope, Organisation. He economic model can be applied to our regions of Africa and the Arabic world indeed.

 

Jeannie Javelosa DR Willy SoCROPPED

 

UFFP editor met  JEANNIE JAVELOSA.  PHILIPPINES

Can you tell us about yourself and your work at Echostores ?

I’m Jeannie Javelosa Owner of Echostore a retail brand.  I’m a  Social entrepreneur on what is specifically nomitaned as « eco  » It is a real humane orientated organisation that sells community products, green ecofriendly, healthy and natural organics.

So sustainable development speaks to you? yes indeed, from the ground  to the top level, sustainability is also about teaching  people about sustainability. We are very much into social consumerism,  tracability. Our retail concept is a try concept: there is a store, there is a market and there is a caf that sells the ingredients of the market in food. When people go there it is a complete experience.

Jeannie  Javelosa in one of her stores

What do you sell? bodycare, home clinic solutions, gifs, jewellry, accessories everything that can begin to bring you to a sustainable lifestyle.

Tell us a bit about the Foundation? It takes care of all the sustainable development all the way down stream focusing on development trade now. We opened three and a half years ago and already after three month  we were the best concept from the Country. We are the collaborators, the integrators, we were bringing funding groups together for development. We were opening specialty markets.

A real impact media wise? Yes since the past three years we have been invited everywhere, i was in the UN Rio +20, The Hague and we were invited to many global women forum in the World. At the end we became like though leaders for what we were doing.

The philosophy ? is to find how to nurture the self, the community and the planet ? in a wholistic way. Young, trendy etc

What are your expansion plans ? Opening franchising already, develop ecommerce specifically to develop export. We started already a little ecommerce in Manilla but we want it in a higher level of export.

Women empowerment and Echostores? it is really major, we are very strong women of Philipppines, we had two women President already. When we started our business we were three women but after a year we realised  that 85% of our supply base were women. 90 %  of our consumer base were women.

Anything related to green sustainability you find women ? yes indeed, we are the first one in these fields. When the women are the ones to purchase the product that we realise that the next generation has a better health and a better life. We help women empowerment through the economic and the developping of  our eco products. When you give the money to women you can be sure that the childrens health, the food for children will be better !

There is also a 100 % success because it is their only lifeline, especially with microfinancing. We bring women together and they know it is their only chance to survive.100 % is paid back by women when it comes to microfinance. It is fantastic and where we are right now with Echostores we really became the voice of a green and healthy life.

Planet awareness is important ? when we begin to see the enormity of our issues and problems, it might be a little too late!  Still we need to turn towards a green economy as we are in a transition.

The old system cannot work, and what happens is that women entrepreneurs are the ones that can quickly change and innovate. Therefore we can move faster. Bigger compagnies have harder time to break structures, bureaucracy etc

Inevitably we all have to be there!

Your Cartier experience ? totally grateful that a big brand has seen a little seed the reason why is that often consider myself as a small idea with a big heart. I Feel already as a winner whatever happens.The strenght of Cartier in backing us up is such an extraordinary feeling of success.