A woman behind We Encourage — a social enterprise on a mission to end child marriages

Hi, I am Anna Juusela, the CEO and a co-founder of We Encourage Oy Ltd. I have been an entrepreneur since 2011, mainly working in the retail sector as a lecturer and a consult. My educational background is in fashion and business administration. My interest towards future and trends led me towards new technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain. Those two technologies have huge potential, which fascinates me.

How did I end up building We Encourage?

I could say that this mission chose me. Few years back, I was watching a documentary about an Afghan girl, Sonita Alizadeh, who wanted to be a rapper. Long story short, she was almost forced into marriage but the documentary maker ended up buying her free. Something shifted in me, I got a strong determination and vision about helping other girls to get educated instead of being forced into marriage. Few years I let that vision grow in me, until November 2018 I took action to make this vision a reality.

What is the mission of We Encourage?

12 million girls are forced and sold into marriage annually because their families lack the funds to educate them or they do not see the need for girls to be educated. This is because of religious and/or cultural reasons, as in many parts of the world girls are seen as a commodity. Hundreds of thousands of girls in developed countries are also forced into marriages and/or genital mutilation. Girls and authorities lack information and assistance.

These hundred of millions of girls and women in developed and developing countries, end up in modern day slavery and are victims of forced marriages, honor-based violence, domestic and sexual abuse. Girls and women forced into marriage are not able to get themselves out of the marriages, because the lack of sufficient safety and support network. Women and girls lack supportive global community and safety net that would work as an empowering tool for them to choose independence. Too many do not have any place to question their religion and suppressive practices enabled by it, they have trouble finding others in a similar situation, and to get support for those who dare to dream controversial future for themselves from the traditional one.

People want transparency and connection

Traditional charities and nonprofits are not sufficient enough for tackling these issues in a modern day world. People giving money to charities and non-profits cannot be certain that the money goes where it should, there are too many middle men and opportunities for corruption.

As for our research, people are eager to make an impact, but they want transparency, to be able to see the results and create connections between people they are helping. Current systems fail to provide this.

This is what We Encourage is changing. We Encourage builds a crowdfunding platform for women empowerment. Our solution secures transparency, community and follow ups for the impact makers. Our business model is commission based.

Our skilled international team and a wide network of advisors ranging from Phd on gender issues, to lawyer, to business people, are helping us to reach our mission.

Why I am passionate to enable education for girls?

As a woman, who is a firm believer of gender equality, I know there is no such thing as women would be less qualified or weaker than men. There are strong women and weak men, as well as there are weak women and strong men. We all are unique and perfect in our own ways, it is time to break free from the collective conditional programming of gender issues and move towards a new paradigm of valuing each other as human beings.

As a mother of a girl child, this way of treating millions of girls as a commodity is unacceptable. We cannot afford to live in a world, where girls are exploited, raped and abused. This behavior and thinking pattern of women being less equal has too many negative side effects starting from overpopulation to stress and anxiety in masses.

Children born from a child mothers, beaten and raped, are in no good psychological and physical condition to start a healthy normal life, and in no way is the child mother capable of bearing the heavy burden of taking good care of her child. We all can see what fruits this behavior brings, just by looking at the situation in those countries this practice of marrying girls as children is causing.

We invite you to take a closer look at what we are building and to follow our mission at We Encourage Facebook page