“I started [the business] on my second maternity leave 10 years ago. Before that, I was engaged in large corporations in high positions in marketing and public relations. [...] I used the pause to rethink my purpose in business and I started testing healthy oatmeal cookies, which was really strange back then,” Milica Ličina Čalija, the founder of Anđeli (Serbian for Angels) tells Andrew Wrobel. 

“Now, we do have some kind of awareness of the importance of healthy eating. Back then, online shopping was not as developed as it is now. And healthy habits in eating were not as developed.” 

The cookie producer now has eight employees, and seven of them are women. They are a social enterprise because all of the female employees are either over 45 years old, which is a group in Serbia that cannot be easily employed, or have some kind of chronic illness. 

“It's a community, a kind of family. And when I say that I'm an activist and I empower women, I do not only do that through some kind of advocacy,” she adds. 

But Milica is also an activist and runs her own podcast.  

"I always talk about difficult moments and obstacles, thinking that if I share that experience, someone else will be encouraged to overcome the same obstacle,” she says.