Presenting strong female role models and battling gender stereotypes with MOD-ELLE

Five women enter a classroom, each one carrying a number. The children in the class are asked to guess the career of each woman. What do they say?

As a school committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion, Collège Champittet is delighted to work with MOD-ELLE, a Swiss association dedicated to combatting gender stereotypes. Sexism limits the career choices of women across the world, and studies have shown that perceptions of “male” or “female” roles and careers begin to form at an early age. MOD-ELLE aims to dismantle these gender stereotypes by introducing children to strong female role models. By carrying out exercises like the above, the association challenges preconceived notions regarding gender and profession, and encourages girls to pursue their career aspirations in all professions.

Last month, MOD-ELLE founder Andrea Delannoy visited our Year 7 and 8 students in Pully and Nyon, accompanied by several inspiring female professionals, each of them working in a traditionally male-dominated field. After trying to guess the women’s jobs, children had the opportunity to ask questions and learn about the diverse careers of each female guest speaker.

In Pully, students met Marta Sofia dos Santos, art historian and Director of the Château de Chillon (a friend of Champittet, Marta is also involved in organising our cultural season); Nathalie Garcia, engineer, Senior Project Manager at Worldline; Anna Vladau, tax attorney and Partner at Bonnard Lawson; Sandrine Duvoisin, bank advisor and Head of Private Clients at Retraites Populaires; and Mariaelena Simonitti, IT, Senior Consultant at Deloitte.

Our Nyon students met Rébecca Michelot, gemmologist, Founder and Director of Synapsia and the first woman President of the Swiss Gemmological Society; Patricia Egger, EPFL mathematics graduate, Security Risk and Governance Manager at Proton; Joëlle de Meyer, Marketing Manager at Chanel; Guylaine Gaudreau, former CHRO, Board Member at Versus; and Magdalena Fink, Senior Consultant Cyber Security Strategy and Transformation at Deloitte.

These presentations were a wonderful way for our students to discover different career pathways built by inspiring women. We look forward to hosting more such events to promote gender equality, reminding our students that the sky’s the limit!