#15 – Christine Amour-Levar – Using Adventure, Sport & Travel to End Violence Against Women

Doing Good Podcast by Amra Naidoo

Of French, Swiss and Filipino descent, Christine Amour-Levar is Social Entrepreneur, Marketing Consultant and Author who passionately believes in women empowering each other. She grew up between Manila, Paris and Tokyo and is currently based in Singapore, where she lives with her husband and four children. After graduating from Sophia University in Tokyo, with a BA in International Business and Economics, and a minor in Japanese language, she embarked on a fulfilling career that took her across Europe, Asia, North and South America for brands such as Nike, McCann-Erickson, Philippe Starck and her own Brazilian fashion retail business, Beijaflor. After selling her retail business in 2010, she went on to write the motivational guide, The Smart Girl’s Handbook to Being Mummylicious, published in May 2012.

Today, Christine heads Marketing and Communications at Temasek Trust and Temasek Management Services, two wholly-owned subsidiaries of Temasek Holdings, a global investment firm headquartered in Singapore. She is also the Chief Marketing Officer of iRace Group, one of Asia's leading horse racing publishing and media companies and the Founding Partner of Women On A Mission, a non-profit organisation, which combines challenging expeditionary travel to remote locations around the world with the support of humanitarian causes.

Christine recently received the 100 Most Influential Filipina Women in the World Award™ (Global FWN100™) that recognises Filipina women who are influencing the face of leadership in the global workplace, having reached status for outstanding work in their respective fields, and who are recognised for their leadership, achievement and contributions to society, female mentorship and legacy.

I am super excited to introduce you to Christine. She is someone who I really admire because of her personal and professional accomplishments. You’ll hear me say it a few times in this episode, but I honestly don’t know how she has the time to do everything that she does. Having said that, I think when you’ve found that sweet spot in your life where you can use the skills that you’re good at while you work at something that you’re passionate about, the time you spend on work, doesn’t seem like work at all. Christine co-founded Women on a Mission - a social enterprise that combines travel, sport and adventure with her passion to end violence against women. Now I’m not talking about leisurely travel here, some of their recent missions have included one to Iran in November 2016 where they trekked 200km of dessert. They also recently went to Jordan for rock climbing, Siberia to live with the nomadic Nenets reindeer herders and even up to Everest Base Camp in 2012. These trips are not for the faint-hearted. We’ll chat about how they do these trips, prepare for them and how these trips contribute to the fight to end violence against women. Let’s get in to the show!

Favorite quote from episode:

“It may sound cliché, but I really believe that if you follow your passion and you do that throughout your life - even through the tough times when you think ‘oh I should just get safe job’ or, ‘I should just stick to something that is less flamboyant or risky’, but I think that if you do that continuously through your life, it ends up all just coming together.” – Christine [20:50]

People/ items mentioned in this episode:

Women On A Mission

Smart Girl’s Handbook to Being Mummylicious

Women for Women International

Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE)

UN Women Singapore

Pertapis Children’s Home Singapore

Changemaker workshop (AWARE)

Get in contact with Christine on her website, Twitter, or through Women On A Mission

Show notes

• What is Women On A Mission? [05:00]
• Christine tells us about the causes that Women On A Mission support and why [08:35]
• How do teammates fundraise for these trips? [17:45]
• How does Women On A Mission measure impact? [23:30]
• “It’s not work for me! I work on it [Women On A Mission] every day but I don’t consider it work. It’s so much fun, I love what I do with Women On A Mission – it’s my profession of the heart” [29:50]
• Where does Christine see the future of Women On A Mission & what kind of things are they working on? [34:34]
• Corporate partnerships and corporate responsibility programs [38:40]
• “I put a lot of value on being kind and being compassionate towards others. But also educating yourself all through your life” [44:00]
• Three Things [47:00]

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Let me know in the comments!

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Keywords:

Social enterprise, corporate social responsibility, entrepreneurship, social enterprise, social entrepreneur, changemaker, social good, social impact, volunteer, women in business, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, empowerment, travel, adventure, sport, women, feminism, end violence, mother, businesswomen