Batting for empowerment

Home textile manufacturers - Welspun India, has collaborated with UN Women, subsidiary organ of the United Nations mandated to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women. The home textile conglomerate currently has 23% women workforce and aims to achieve the target of 30% women employees by 2020.

The association aims to empower women with skill building initiatives in technical and entrepreneurial sectors for sustainable livelihoods, thus promoting gender diversity. Welspun India’s partnership with UN Women will advocate gender equality at workplace thus bridging the gaps and opportunities for women workforce, drive the agenda on equal pay for equal work, representing and leveraging the role of women in leadership and attain a work environment with zero harassment.

Talking about the association, Dipali Goenka, CEO & Jt. MD, Welspun India said, “Collaboration and Inclusive Growth are at the core of Welspun Group. This strategic partnership with UN Women will help Welspun India to enhance the quality of workforce and skill development for women.

Also, this will strengthen the capabilities of 500 women entrepreneurs and embed them within organized value chains ensuring enterprise development, supply chain and marketing practices that will empower women.” Furthermore, she added, “Establishing joint advocacy platforms with UN Women will promote greater representation of women in leadership across corporate India.”

Nishtha Satyam, Deputy Representative, UN Women, Office for India, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka said, that the economic and human development costs of gender gaps are enormous, as are the potential gains from closing them.Evidence acknowledges that bringing more women into the labour force would unlock trillions of dollars for developing economies.”

“It is now being increasingly acknowledged that women in businesses and management can be a game changer and drive inclusive economic growth and more sustainable enterprises. Investing in Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment is a key step towards human rights and equality, it's also simple, sound business and social logic.” The collaboration will ensure a direct measurement and reporting of progress to achieve gender equality in Welspun India and related sectors in India.

Women empowerment being one of the core principles of the company, they recently launched Welspun 2, an entire cut and sew unit run by only women employees. The unit, currently employees more than 800 women from across the country. The company has set up a hostel for women at its plant to ensure safety outside the workspace.