The L’Oréal Fund for Women
Today, women worldwide are still disproportionately affected by the social and economic crisis generated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
© Photo: HCR
Through the L’Oréal Fund for Women, a €50 million solidarity fund established by L’Oréal in 2020 to empower women at risk, we have already supported 400,000 women and girls directly, and, indirectly, another 700,000 people within their communities.
To make the greatest positive impact, we partnered with 120 charities and on-the ground partners in 30 countries worldwide. Together, we focused on helping women gain access to education, find work and integrate into society, while fighting against violence, poverty, and supporting women refugees and women in situations of handicap.
The three-year fund is part of our ambition to contribute address the great social and environmental challenges of our world through L’Oréal for the Future, our ambitious new sustainability program towards 2030.
Discover more about our Commitments to Support Highly Vulnerable Women
“Women are all too often silent victims of discrimination. In 2020, the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities, creating situations of even greater hardship for women worldwide. We have taken decisive action to support the most vulnerable, and will keep expanding and accelerating our efforts to help more women over the next two years.”
Alexandra Palt, L’Oréal Group’s Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer
Why we’re supporting women
Women have suffered both loss of income and serious impacts to their wellbeing in the wake of the pandemic. In particular, women are more likely to work in informal sectors with negligible access to financial support, while many work in the industries hardest hit by the crisis. Many single mothers, who make up the majority of single-parent families, have had to turn to food banks to feed their families. Meanwhile, domestic and sexual violence has increased worldwide, with tensions rising as people were confined to their homes. In France, these incidents increased by 30%.
Supporting women is not only the right thing to do: keeping women safe and healthy will help us all to forge a pathway towards a sustainable, fair and inclusive future. They are at the forefront of supporting patients in hospital, representing 70% of medical personnel worldwide. They keep our supermarkets moving and take care of the vulnerable in our communities. And they are powerful catalysts of change. Their benevolent actions ripple out through our society, providing hope and support for the vulnerable.
© Photo: Techfugees
How we supported women in our first year: a few examples
In 2020, we worked with organisations including Women without Borders in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Zanzibar and Kosovo to empower women to recognize situations of violence in their local communities. To address the domestic violence crisis in France, we are working with the Maison des Femmes to provide additional support for women in situations of extreme vulnerability.
We also partnered with the UNHCR to help more than 100,000 displaced women around the world, fighting against sexual abuse in Thailand, protecting victims of sexual violence and discrimination in Colombia and acting in favor of professional inclusion in Argentina. And because the fight against gender inequality begins at schools’ gates, we support the Education For Women Now program of Aide & Action, helping marginalised women and girls in Africa, Asia and Europe to access quality education.
