From marketing and sales to the highest peaks in the world and of course, Mount Everest! Vanessa Archontidou, versatile, dynamic and stubborn, decided to create the organisation "A Woman Can Be" as she knows first-hand that a woman can achieve everything! Now she is getting ready for Antarctica to wake us up in relation to the environment and sustainability with “Women for Nature_THE ANTARCTICA EXPEDITION PROJECT”.

By Mia Kollia

Translated by Alexandros Theodoropoulos

Vanessa Archontidou, mother of two boys, arrived in the spring of 2019 - with the first Greek women's team - at the top of the world, Mount Everest. She is a marketer, alpinist, motivational speaker, environmental communicator and founder of "A Woman Can Be". 

Although for the last 17 years marketing and sales has been the core of her professional career as she works as a Director of Marketing in multinational companies, her personal development was influenced by her love for nature, meditation, mountaineering and long journeys.

In 2004 she became a member of the Athenian Mountaineering Association (AOS) where she completed the School of Climbing and Winter Mountain and now occasionally helps as a leader in climbing and hiking. 

As part of her mountaineering action she has participated in commercial missions around the world and with the aim of achieving the international project "7 SUMMITS" she has traveled to 6 of the 7 continents and has climbed to their highest peaks! 

Her respect for nature and concern for environmental sustainability were established in the mountains of Greece and the rest of the world. The search for a better future went hand in hand with the search for a better self, with awareness and consciousness. Now, as a mindful trainer, she specialises in outdoor meditation techniques that enhance concentration, empathy and positive psychology. 

In November 2019 she founded the organisation "A Woman Can Be" because she really believes that a woman can be whatever the goal is to become. 

Woman, planet, environment 

"Both my professional and personal career have made me realise that women's equality still needs work to be achieved and is a daily struggle with society, stereotypes and ourselves. I personally realised that I can do that through my contact with nature and the mountains. 

I realised that we are just a few women who have the privilege to enjoy nature, adventure, exploration and the freedom that all these entail. Not because we aren’t strong, but because we have grown up with images and patterns that want us neat, clean and uncrumpled. But times are difficult. Our planet is now in danger more than ever and it needs all of us, especially women who have an untapped potential. 

That is why we must take the lead in actions aimed at environmental sustainability. My next project under “AWomanCanBe.org”, the "Women for Nature_THE ANTARCTICA EXPEDITION PROJECT", aims to raise environmental awareness. 

This is a mission to Antarctica, a place most affected by the effects of climate change, to highlight the problem, to discuss it and to start realising that what seems distant to us is in fact next to us and without our participation in the solution, will soon affect our own lives. 

What exactly is Women For Nature_THE ANTARCTICA EXPEDITION PROJECT

"The project is part of Women for Nature, an initiative of the organisation that creates the conditions for women to lead actions aimed at the sustainability of the natural environment and the treatment of environmental problems and threats such as climate change. 

Antarctica Expedition is an awareness mission with an international impact but a Greek soul. It takes place on the continent that regulates the climate of the entire planet and at the same time is most affected by climate change. A Greek woman will attempt to climb Mount Vinson, the highest peak in Antarctica and ski to the South Pole, conveying the message: “Women can make a difference on the subject of climate change too".  

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