Before becoming this great inspiration who would get thousands of young girls aged 12 to 17 moving across the country, Claudine Labelle was an elite cyclist with an Olympic dream. While training for a major competition in Toronto, she was hit by a car. She was just 22 years old. The severe head trauma she suffered put an end to her career as a high-level athlete. Unable to concentrate or even read, it took her two years of rehabilitation therapy before she could get back to a more or less normal life. Then, she had her first child and redefined her essence and priorities.

Fall and get up again

Claudine Labelle recalled what she felt when, when she was younger, she had trained children from disadvantaged backgrounds to swim. "This experience opened my mind to the other virtues of physical activity such as self-esteem and socialization at a time when I valued performance." Reading about the problem of sedentary lifestyles among girls aged 12 to 17 – 9 out of 10 girls are not active enough – made her think.

The entrepreneurial fever she had known as a child came back very strong when she had to use strategy to raise the funds needed to pay for her sports registrations. "Getting the support of the community, mobilizing people for a common mission, it remained in my DNA. I had to market not a product, but an initiative and I decided to make it a non-profit organization because I wanted young girls to get all the moral and financial support they needed." The Fillactive Foundation was created in 2007 and focuses on fun and the absence of competition to encourage physical activity among teenage girls.

Beyond the girl, a system to change

To build her project, Claudine first invested her own money. Then, she built a network of people ready to commit. Before approaching donors, she made sure she was ready by setting the bar very high to meet all their criteria. "I first approached businesses because it came more naturally to me." The social entrepreneur then focuses on developing partnerships with schools and communities to organize rewarding events and experiences.

Other organizations have joined Fillactive over time and not only provide financial and strategic support, but also push the social impact of the initiative further. "What we realized is that beyond the young girl, there is an entire system that needs to be changed so that she can move in the best possible context. We need to mobilize parents, teachers and governments, but also universities and organizations that work with them."

Fillactive has just completed its first major fundraising campaign, which raised $11 million. These funds will be used to continue the pan-Canadian deployment, develop support web platforms and contribute to university research on young girls.

“As an entrepreneur, I am aware of my strengths for business development. One of my concerns in recent years has been learning to take a step back and look for the right complementary players. I am at the stage of learning to delegate, trust and be clear in my communications.”

#authentic

Authenticity is one of the trends still going strong for 2019-2020. For us, Claudine Labelle perfectly embodies the authentic entrepreneur who uses confidence, consistency and coherence to inspire others.