Tone Lise established her school, the Tone Lise Akademiet, on Oslo´s main downtown thoroughfare ‘Karl Johans gate’. Every day she was able to see what was happening in the area. Observing the ongoing prostitution and drug dealing made an impression on her, and Tone Lise got more and more concerned about the predicament of the women working on the streets.
After looking for ways to help for a long time, Tone Lise sat down to have a meeting with Unni Kiil, the project coordinator of ROSA, in 2005. ROSA (which stands for Resettlement, “Opphold” (Residence), Security, Assistance) is a project established by the Krisesentersekretariatet (The Secretariat of the Shelter Movement) as a measure under the governmental Action Plan against Human Trafficking.
The meeting resulted in two tasks for Tone Lise: to raise money for ROSA and to raise awareness about trafficking in Norway. To make a long story short, this culminated in a campaign fronted by six Norwegian female celebrities that launched a special ROSA nail polish collection. ROSA gets all the profits from the sales. The campaign was considered to be a great success as it raised more than NOK 200,000 for ROSA and put trafficking on the agenda in the national news and weekly magazines.
To this day the Tone Lise Akademiet has continued to collaborate with ROSA and the Krisesentersekretariatet on other projects to help women who have been subjected to trafficking.
“I am grateful that we in the Tone Lise Akademiet can do our share and contribute to a better life for some of these women. But we also get so much in return – a lot of joy, a deeper understanding of life and people and the satisfaction of doing something worthwhile – and we get to experience so much, for better and for worse.”
Tone Lise regularly gives presentations on her active social responsibility to organisations, governmental bodies and at conferences. She is very clear about the responsibilities of entrepreneurs and business leaders today:
“You can´t run a future-oriented business today without undertaking active social responsibility. Sincere engagement is necessary, and you need to understand that giving is receiving!”