Anita Roddick: Tribute to a social entrepreneur

In February 2007, Roddick revealed that she had contracted Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion in 1971 during the birth of her youngest daughter, Sam, and was additionally suffering from cirrhosis of the liver as a result. She is said to have unknowingly lived with the virus for thirty years and only found out about it after a blood test

She was born Anita Perella in 1942 in Little Hampton, England, and was the third of four children, grew up working in her parents' café, to which she attributes her intense work ethics. At a young age, she read a book about the holocaust that included photographs of those who suffered in concentration camps.

"This kick-started me into a sense of outrage and a sense of empathy for the human condition," she recalled.

Anita had been a rebel of sort from her early beginnings. In school in Kibbutz, in Israel, after a pranking incident, she was expelled and sent home. Anita held several jobs and saved money and travelled extensively. She stayed and went to school in South Africa until she was expelled there as well after going to a jazz club on black night, violating apartheid laws. Another rebellion.

She returned home where she was introduced to her husband, Gordon Roddick and married in 1971. The two of them made a living running a restaurant and an eight room hotel. They felt overworked and wanted a change. With Anita's approval, Gordon Roddick went trekking on horse from Buenos Aries to New York leaving her to support her self and two girls.

While her husband was away, Roddick gave birth to The Body Shop which today, has grown to 1,980 stores and more than 77 million customers in 50 different markets serving customers in over 25 different languages. In 2006, the company became an independently managed subsidiary of the L'Oreal Group.

Anita was a people's woman. The Body Shop has a reputation for supporting social and environmental causes, thanks to Roddick's strong personal sense of social responsibility. After stepping down in 2002 from co-chairman, she spent 80 days of the year working as a consultant in her stores and used the rest of her time to advance causes in campaigns against human rights abuses and exploitation of the underprivileged. She recently donated $1.8 million (N229, 860,000) to Amnesty International's School for Activism.

Clive Stafford Smith, in his tribute to Anita, who died at the age of 64, said:

"I had two hours' worth of coffee with Anita Roddick a couple of weeks before she died, and she was effervescing with energy. She had long been a supporter of Reprieve, the charity I work for, and I was overjoyed that she had agreed to take on the role of leading the Board. She was to chair her first meeting later this month, and we were discussing the future. She was full of ideas - what were the challenges we had to meet? What were our strengths? Could we bring the staff to her house for a couple of days, and draw up a battle plan for the next year?

"How could we ensure that more young people turned their lives to helping the men, women and children held on death row around the world, or isolated in secret prisons? I had first come across her when I was living in New Orleans, representing death row prisoners, and she came campaigning for the Angola Three - men who had been sentenced to life in prison in Louisiana for allegedly killing a prison guard thirty years before."

Said he: "Anita was dismissive of the idea that she might one day retire."The most exciting part of my life is now," she said. "I believe the older you get, the more radical you become."