Closing remarks by the on Avon Corporate Communications Head, Louie Migne.

September 22, 2007
Astoria Plaza
Oritgas Center, Pasig City

Thank you for the opportunity to help promote Breast Cancer Patient Power. This is a project that took a year in the planning. This started after Kara and I attended American Cancer Society University that brought together advocates and Avon associates from ten countries.

Avon, as a company for women, has been helping empower women for 120 years. This and our strong advocacy breast cancer, make it just perfect for us to partner with ICS, I Can Serve, on putting together a gathering of awesome women.

In the course of my 13 years with Avon, I have never before stood before such an awesome group of women. I stand in awe because I know all of you are involved in a personal struggle to be victorious and to survive breast cancer from day to day; and each day I know is a measure of success. I stand in awe knowing that in spite your personal battles, you are setting aside a great amount of your energy, time, resources, and spirit to help and empower other women. I stand in awe because I sense and feel a very strong commitment, passion, and love in this group. Something tells me that even when the going will get rough, all of you will still continue to fight for yourselves and to serve other women.

Thank you for your spirit, and thank you for being there for others. Avon realizes the importance of this advocacy and we have made it a commitment to devote resources to support the fight against breast cancer.

Just to give you a little history, our advocacy started with a partnership with the Philippine Cancer Society in 1993. Our objective was to bring the message of early detection to as many women as possible. Our first target was to educate our 300,000 Avon ladies, and encourage them to pass on the message to their customers. After years of information dissemination, we launched Kiss Goodbye to Breast Cancer in 2002. The funds that we raised enabled us to build the PGH Breast Cancer Center.

Since then, it has been Avon’s commitment to raise funds with the help of our Avon ladies. Each October, Avon would donate a certain amount from the sale of products. At this point, I’d like to share with you a video that we showed to our representatives last August, to rally them once again to this cause.

(Video showing)

This is a video that we showed to our sales force during our national sales convention. The purpose of this to really encourage them and rally them to really support our cause because in October, our commitment is we will donate five pesos from the sale of a line of lipsticks, a fast selling fragrance, and a line of intimate apparel, as well as a scarf, to the fund that will support three hospitals, the PGH Breast Care Center, the Corazon Locsin-Montelibano Regional Hospital in Bacolod, and the Northern Mindanao Medical Center in Cagayan de Oro. This was used as a rallying point for our sales representatives to really help us support the fundraising by selling these products.

So, these are the products that we will be selling in October, and our Avon ladies, we’re rallying them so that they will go all out to really support the cause. So, we have a special scarf also that will symbolize our commitment this year to the advocacy.

We are also organizing in October the 2nd Avon Walk Against Breast Cancer. This is happening simultaneously on October 22 in Manila, Bacolod, and Cagayan de Oro. As I’ve said, all proceeds will go to the three hospitals, PGH and the two regional hospitals in Bacolod and Cagayan de Oro. You have been very, very supportive of the Avon Walk last year with your presence and I hope that you will extend to us the same support this year.

I started with a note of thanks, let me just end by…

END OF DISC 7, DAY 2, with Missing Minutes

Louie: …and her attention to details. Her persistence in going after all the speakers as well, and this is a personal note of thanks to Alice for giving me the confidence that inspite of the limited time that I had for this project, everything will turn out all right. Maraming, maraming salamat, Alice.

So, I’d also like to thank the I Can Serve core staff, and of course, Meryll, for their time and commitment; and Stratworks, of course, Avon’s partner for PR and events, for being in control of the details, and for so ably organizing the technicals and taking care of the participants well. So, I’m sure this is born out of everybody’s commitment for service and excellence. We were all brought together for a purpose, and clearly this is to serve women; and I know that with God’s blessings and guidance, we can do it. As a symbol of this commitment to serve, may I share with you the scarf that symbolizes Avon’s commitment this year? May I ask our sisters from Stratworks to give a scarf each to all our ladies who are here?

As an expression of our sisterhood, let us help each other wear the scarf. You just might want to be guided by how our women supporters and endorsers are wearing the scarf, and then after everybody’s ready, we can have a class picture.