On March 8, Paola Craveiro, Founder & CEO of Vulvae, a startup dedicated to the development of care pathway solutions for people suffering from chronic vulvar pain, won the annual call for projects launched by the Femmes de Santé collective. Her project will be part of the future French Institute for Women’s Health. Alice de Maximy, founder of the collective and in full preparation for the creation of the Institute, gives us more details.
On March 8, on the occasion of International Women’s Rights Day, 13 candidates, pre-selected by a jury, pitched their projects for women’s health. Can you tell us more?
Alice from Maximy: On March 8, the event (1) brought together nearly 250 people in video and face-to-face in the ParisSanté Campus premises. It was widely relayed on social networks and the positive feedback was numerous. At the end of the morning of pitches, Paola Craveiro, Founder & CEO of Vulvae, was rewarded by the jury. As a reminder, Vulvae offers various services: a vulvar health monitoring application, digital therapeutic support programs, training for healthcare professionals to promote better patient care as well as TPE tools. to learn more regarding the vulva, its pathologies, its pains and the solutions that exist.
Three other health care women won a “coup de coeur” prize: Marianne Lainé, who founded the Simone Veil Medical Institute, a unique model in France for organizing caregivers for the care of women in need of ‘IVG, Raphaëlle Taub, who leads the Matricis.ai project, an artificial intelligence software to help radiologists diagnose endometriosis and, finally, Charlotte Berthaut, who leads the Dépist&vous project, a digital platform intended to support each person towards effective prevention and early detection of cancer.
What does the winner of the call for projects actually gain?
A.M. : It now enjoys media visibility in the journals of the 1Health group, partner of the collective. Added to this is support for business development by Manuel Biota, a partner of the CF Advisory Group, specializing in supporting managers and start-ups in operational business management, as well as support in communication, press relations and decision-making. of speech both by the collective and by Marie-Christine Lavaux, founder of Garance Conseil.
Her project, like that of the 12 other candidates, is intended to be integrated into a future « French Institute for Women’s Health ». What does it consist on ?
A.M. : The creation of the Institute is an idea that emerged during the General States of Women in Health that we organized on December 9th. Today, the Institute exists, in itself, since I registered its name with the INPI. Its objective and its pillars: to become a key player in women’s health et federate/support all players in this field.
The challenge: that this Institute does not become a huge “mammoth” nor yet another “skills center” and that it does not carry out projects in the place of health actors, but rather that it participates in the construction of a true women’s health journey, that it coordinates and references the actions carried out in this area and, finally, that it supports, financially and logistically, for-profit and non-profit projects in favor of women’s health. The Institute will also have a role of promotion of women’s health. All that remains, to date, is to specify the legal form and method of financing of this institute.
Precisely, how do you imagine its financing?
A.M. : So far, we have gathered a certain amount of support, including political support, but for this Institute to be effective and sustainable, we need funding. And this, through, not donations, but investmentsso that the teams that will work within it are paid – and not volunteers – and that the projects it supports can develop.
We are therefore currently looking for financial partners who are, I insist, ethical. I will not endorse potential partners who are only interested in the Institute for image purposes, in short, for “women’s health washing”.
What are the other projects of the Femmes de santé collective?
A.M. : We will have, at the beginning of December, in principle, the new edition of the Estates General on Women’s Health! The theme of environmental health was proposed. We will consult, in the weeks to come, the members of the collective, which now has 2,600 members (including around fifty men), to see if they actually wish to put this subject at the heart of the debates.
In a few months, we will once more highlight 13 women in health who have worked in favor of the health system. They have already been selected. They will be officially presented at SantExpo. See you on May 24 at 12:45 p.m. on the FHF stand!
Finally, we continue our gourmet coffees, tips, podcasts “Les Expertes de la santé”… as well as our training and advice activities on gender equality, the prevention and management of sexist behavior and sexual harassment at work. , identifying and managing the behavior of victims of domestic and couple violence at work… We are very proud because we have, among other things, been congratulated by the AP-HP for the quality of our intervention on these subjects! We hope to be able to further expand these offers.
We are also continuing our role ofadvocacy. Our work today irrigates the work of the ministries and of Parliament. I personally took part in a meeting organized by Isabelle Rome, Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister, responsible for Equality between Women and Men, Diversity and Equal Opportunities, and I know that some of the members of the collective have also relayed our proposals to their services, for example. We thus participated in the inclusion of the women’s health pillar in the interministerial plan for equality between women and men 2023-2027 (2).
I was also interviewed in the Senate as part of the preparation of the information report on the health of women at work… Today, we can say that we have a voice, a place in the city, in the Greek sense of the term!
(1) Under the patronage of Madame Isabelle Rome, Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister, in charge of Equality between women and men, Diversity and Equal Opportunities; the sponsorship of Mr. Stanislas Guérini, Minister of Transformation and Public Service; and the patronage of Madame Agnès Firmin le Bodo, Minister Delegate to the Minister of Health and Prevention, in charge of Territorial Organization and Health Professions
(2) This plan is thus structured around four main areas: the fight once morest violence once morest women; women’s health; professional and economic equality; the culture of equality.
