Sophia Swire, Social entrepreneur and expert on international development

Frankly Speaking, with Lynne Franks & Friends

In this episode of Frankly Speaking with Lynne Franks and Friends, Lynne is joined by her friend Sophia Swire, social entrepreneur, the founder of Future Brilliance Afghan charity and GEDI, her global women’s investment fund. They discuss using education as a powerful tool for creating positive and radical change for good in the world and Sophia’s passion for impact and building a sustainable livelihood for others.

Sophia began her career at Kleinwort Benson Securities, part of London’s largest Investment Bank, but after the market crash of 1987, she started down a very different path, one that would have a direct, meaningful and immediate impact on people's lives.

Whilst trekking in Chitral, a remote, snow-bound valley in Pakistan’s Hindu Kush she was approached by the local Deputy Commissioner who asked her to help him up an English Medium school, and returned to spend a year teaching there.

She went on to co‐found Learning for Life, a UK-based charity that supported the establishment of over 250 village schools for girls in rural Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. For this, she was awarded the 2010 Pakistan Achievement Award.

In the 1990s, she launched and managed an innovative, social impact cashmere brand, Sophia Swire London, that is widely credited with starting the global fashion trend for pashmina shawls.

In 2008, she started Afghanistan’s first Jewelry and Gem-cutting school for the charity, Turquoise Mountain, and has since worked with various Afghanistan-based government and non-government organizations to reform the gemstone mining sector and put more value into the hands of Afghan miners and artisans.

In 2012, she founded the non-profit Future Brilliance to foster stability and prosperity through enterprise and workforce development in post conflict countries. Its first project helped Afghan women artisans gain access to the gemstone and jewelry value chain.

Aayenda Jewelry, a Future Brilliance project, was established as a Social Enterprise in the US to build a sales and marketing platform for Afghan jewelry (Aayenda means "future" in the Afghan language, Dari). In 2013, the first jewelry collection was launched as a collaboration between 36 Afghan artisans trained by Future Brilliance and 3 award-winning international designers.

Since then, the line has been sold successfully at stores and online in Asia, EU, Canada, USA, and Mexico, and in 2016 was featured on the front cover of Cosmopolitan Magazine globally, modelled by Brazilian supermodel, Alessandra Ambrosio.

In 2015, graduates of Future Brilliance training programs registered the Aayenda Jewelry Co-operative. Royalty payments from sales of Aayenda, have funded the completion of a bead-making workshop in Northern Afghanistan, in which a further 80 Afghan women have been trained, and tools and equipment for Afghan artisans and designers.

Since the recent take-over by the Taliban, Future Brilliance focus has been to help get their staff and many other women and girls with their families out of the country to create a new life elsewhere.

In 2021, Sophia launched GEDI, her women’s global investment fund, at COP 26 where she spoke on how investing in women’s businesses will help alter climate change and create good business practice.

Sophia is in demand as a expert and speaker on Social Impact Investment and Social Entrepreneurship.

Links

• Sophia’s website
• Future Brilliance
• Aayenda Jewelry
• GEDI
• Follow @sophia_swire on Instagram

If you like what you hear, and want to find out more about our community of like-minded women who believe in living and working in alignment with the feminine values of collaboration, authenticity and most of all, love, you can learn more at https://seednetwork.com and join the community in the SEED Hub Club by visiting https://www.theseedhub.club/

You can find Lynne on Instagram at @lynnejfranks, Facebook @lynnefranksobe, Twitter @Lynne_Franks, LinkedIn @Lynne Franks OBE.

This episode was produced by Lynne Franks and Tanya Anastasiadis.

Production support and graphics by Lotte Micklethwaite.

Music by Joolz Barker