Anita Roddick Totally Explained

Everything about Anita Roddick totally explained

Dame Anita Roddick, DBE (23 October 1942 – 10 September 2007) was the founder of The Body Shop, a British cosmetics company producing and retailing beauty products that shaped ethical consumerism. The company was one of the first to prohibit the use of ingredients tested on animals and one of the first to promote fair trade with third world countries.
   Roddick was also involved in activism and campaigning for environmental and social issues including involvement with Greenpeace and The Big Issue. In 1990, Roddick founded Children On The Edge, a charitable organization which helps disadvantaged children in Eastern Europe and Asia.
   Roddick was diagnosed with liver cirrhosis due to long-standing hepatitis C in 2004, and after she revealed this to the media in February 2007, she promoted the work of the Hepatitis C Trust, and campaigned to increase awareness of the disease.
   In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Roddick a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, and she was officially styled Dame Anita Roddick DBE.

Family background

Roddick was born as Anita Lucia Perilli in a bomb shelter in Littlehampton, Sussex, in an Italian immigrant community, one of four (4) siblings. Her family had fled Naples just before the Second World War. Her mother, Gilda, ran a café, and was in the habit of recycling. She went to school at St Amy's Convent, and then attended the Maude Allen Secondary Modern School. who died of tuberculosis after only a few years of marriage. Prior to this Roddick thought that her mother's first husband, Donny, was her biological father. In 1993 she told Third Way Magazine:
By 2004, the Body Shop had 1980 stores, serving over 77 million customers throughout the world. The Body Shop was voted the second most trusted brand in the United Kingdom, and 28th top brand in the world.
On 17 March 2006, L'Oréal purchased Body Shop for £652 million. This caused controversy, because L'Oréal is involved in animal testing, and because the company is part-owned by Nestlé which has been criticized for its treatment of third world producers. Anita Roddick addressed it directly in an interview with The Guardian, which reported that "she sees herself as a kind of 'Trojan horse' who by selling her business to a huge firm will be able to influence the decisions it makes. Suppliers who had formerly worked with the Body Shop will in future have contracts with L'Oréal, and working with the company 25 days a year Roddick will be able to have an input into decisions."

Charity work

Roddick was known for her campaigning work on environmental issues and was a member of the Demos think tank's advisory council. Children On The Edge (COTE) is an organization that Roddick founded in 1990, in response to her visits to Romanian orphanages.
On live television, Roddick explained that her hepatitis C was unexpectedly diagnosed in 2004, following a blood test that was part of a medical examination needed for a life insurance policy; the blood test indicated abnormal liver function and subsequent blood tests diagnosed hepatitis C. Roddick explained that she'd a large blood transfusion in 1971, after the birth of her younger daughter, and that she's convinced that the transfusion infected her with hepatitis C. This was about 20 years before blood donors were screened for hepatitis C in the United Kingdom. She reported that she's developed cirrhosis of the liver, and that her main symptoms were itching and poor concentration. She briefly mentioned that medical treatment with interferon didn't suit her. Roddick explained that she kept fit and active, and that she attended biannual out-patient hospital appointments in Southampton, as well as being under review by the liver transplant team at the Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

Death

Roddick died of a major acute brain haemorrhage at about 6:30 p.m. on September 10, 2007, after being admitted to St Richard's Hospital, Chichester the previous evening suffering from a severe headache.

Link with Littlehampton Community School

Dame Anita Roddick was a close friend of Littlehampton Community School. In 2003, it successfully applied to become a Business and Enterprise specialist school. Much of the money that was required was donated by Anita Roddick. As a result of this donation, a new building that was built with this money was named 'The Roddick Enterprise Centre' (normally abbreviated to 'REC'). The Littlehampton College also hosts 'Roddick Days' such as 'Day of Action' and 'One World'; these events allow students to give something back to their local community and learn about what is happening around them.
The school is currently planning a future academy to be built. Following the death of Dame Anita Roddick, it has been widely suggested that any future academy should be given her name in memory of the local entrepreneur.

Selected awards

1984 - Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year
1988 - Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)
1988 - Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sussex
1991 - Center for World Development Education's World Vision Award, USA
1993 - Banksia Foundation's Australia Environmental Award
1993 - Mexican Environmental Achiever Award
1993 - National Audubon Society Medal, USA
1994 - Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics, USA
1994 - University of Michigan's Annual Business Leadership Award, USA
1995 - Women's Business Development Center's First Annual Woman Power Award, USA
1996 - Women's Center's Leadership Award, USA
1996 - The Gleitsman Foundation's Award of Achievement, USA
1997 - United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Honouree, Eyes on the Environment
1999 - British Environment & Media Award
1999 - Chief Wiper-Away of Ogoni Tears, Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, Nigeria
2001 - International Peace Prayer Day Organisation's Woman of Peace
2003 - Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE)
2004 - Honorary Doctorate of Public Service, The Sage Colleges

Bibliography

Roddick, Anita - The Body Shop Book - Macdonald, 1985 (ISBN 0-356-10934-8)

Roddick, Anita - Mamatoto: the Body Shop Celebration of Birth - Virago, 1991 (ISBN 1-85381-421-0)

Roddick, Anita - Take it personally: How globalization affects you and powerful ways to challenge it - Anita Roddick Books, 2004

Roddick, Anita - Troubled Water: Saints, Sinners, Truth and Lies about the Global Water Crisis - Anita Roddick Books, 2004 (ISBN 0-9543959-3-X) (with Brooke Shelby Biggs)'

Roddick, Anita - Business as Unusual - Anita Roddick Books, 2005 (ISBN 0-9543959-5-6) (Latest edition)Further Information
Get more info on 'Anita Roddick'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://anita_roddick.totallyexplained.com">Anita Roddick Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.