Goal 5: a businesswoman committed to sustainability in Panama

Panamanian entrepreneur Fanny Acosta is the protagonist of a new episode of our Goal 5 series, a world tour to bear witness to our commitment to achieving equal rights and work opportunities between women and men as established in Goal 5 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda. In Fortuna, training becomes opportunity In this spirit of equity and inclusion, we launched the Semillas de Conocimiento project in Panama to provide new skills to small business owners and farmers. The initiative was launched with a special focus on the participation of women in order to contribute, through training, to the emancipation of women and girls, thereby stimulating economic growth and social development in the area. This project involved Fanny Acosta who, for the past two years, has been on the board of directors of the community-based organization (CBO) Huertos Caseros de Boquete, a women-led initiative to train women and men in the production of 100% organic crops, in the production of substrates and in environmental services. Boquete is a mountainous place not far from our Fortuna Hydroelectric Plant: the largest plant in the country and, above all, a model of integration with the environment, so much so that we work together with the Ministry of the Environment to ensure the protection and conservation of the Fortuna Forest Reserve. Fanny was especially involved in two sustainability initiatives: Cercas Vivas and Regalo Solidario. Living fences and solidarity gifts “Cercas Vivas” means “living fences”: rows of plants that create a protective barrier. They’re useful because they act as windbreaks, protect the soil from erosion and help create biological corridors within the parks. Fanny says that, with the Cercas Vivas project promoted by EGP, "we were trained in environmental services, and then we moved on to the implementation phase: we planted shrubs to create a biological corridor linking the wooded and non-wooded areas, thus helping the animals to move from one point to another. This also creates a barrier against dust and airborne particles, helping to keep the area clean." Meanwhile, “Regalo Solidario”, “Solidarity Gift”, is an initiative that promotes the reuse and recycling of materials and social sustainability: it consists of making bags out of materials obtained from discarded clothing, such as shirts, pants and uniforms donated by Enel's customers and employees. The bags, decorated with images of the Fortuna Forest Reserve, are given to customers, who designate who they should be donated to in their areas of interest. Benefits for the entire community These are projects that have brought about important and concrete changes in the lives of the people involved – not only the direct beneficiaries but the whole community – in terms of training and skills: "Projects like these from EGP are of great benefit to people interested in improving their skills, both creative and artistic as well as organizational and entrepreneurial. In particular, it’s very important to promote the ability to develop initiatives aligned with the concrete needs of the population, because that’s what puts food on people’s tables. This is how change is born.” It's a change that, as Fanny points out, has to do with women's empowerment and gender equality: "EGP's commitment has given equal opportunities to everyone: men and women. It’s important for us to feel part of a community in order to achieve our goals. I’m convinced that achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and in particular Goal 5, will benefit us all." The first to experience the benefits of the projects are the participants themselves: "We learned to plan actions, to organize ourselves as a group, including in terms of bureaucracy: we established ourselves as a CBO, a legal entity, in order to be legally constituted and have the possibility of obtaining funding from other companies or institutions in the future, in order to develop larger projects. This was the biggest challenge for us. Another important lesson is that we’ve learned from our mistakes.” These are experiences that, according to Fanny, can serve as an example: "To women who want to work to be independent and protect the environment, I want to tell them not to be afraid, to never give up. We failed again and again and again. And that's why, in the end, we succeeded."

{{ currentMenugamenu.label }}

{{ currentSubMenugamenu.label }}

{{ card.title }}

{{ currentSubMenugamenu.numbers.title }}

Goal 5: a businesswoman committed to sustainability in Panama

Goal 5: a businesswoman committed to sustainability in Panama

Related contents

{{article.title}}

{{article.title}}

{{article.title}}