Consumer goods giant, Procter & Gamble announced new declarations aimed to accelerate gender equality across India, at its #WeSeeEqual summit, held virtually. Built on the theme ‘#Unsaid and #Undone’, the summit brought together leading voices on Gender Equality to challenge the current discourse and commit to the actions needed for progress. Hosted virtually for the first time, the event saw distinguished advocates and personalities like Sania Mirza, Faye D’souza, Ritesh Deshmukh, Genelia Deshmukh and many more, come together to address the challenges of gender and women’s equality.  

Madhusudan Gopalan, CEO, P&G Indian Subcontinent said, “In India, we have made strong progress through our initiatives like Whisper Menstrual Health and Hygiene Program, P&G Shiksha, working with women-owned businesses and campaigns like Ariel #ShareTheLoad and Gillette #ShavingStereotypes. Our new declarations will further accelerate our progress through a series of new actions, commitments and partnerships. Promoting equality is critical, now more than ever as we recover from the current health crisis in India.”

P&G announced the following new declarations to take action and inspire change on Gender Equality in India: 

♦  Raise awareness about menstrual hygiene, through its brand Whisper®. P&G will educate more than 2.5 crore adolescent girls, on puberty and hygiene over the next three years

♦  Spending ₹300 Cr by working with women-owned businesses in India over the next three years

♦  Committing to have equal representation of female directors for its advertisements across brands in India

♦  In order to provide equal opportunity for women in STEM roles, P&G will:

• Build digital and technological capability of 10,000+ women across P&G’s external network (including customers, retailers, agency partners, among others) over the next year. This will help unlock their potential and enable them to meet their career aspirations 
• Leverage Government’s NEEM Mission across all plant locations in India to upskill and create opportunities exclusively for girls in the neighbouring communities around its plant. P&G has already kickstarted this with its first of its kind initiative called ‘Venus Betiyaan’ at its Bhiwadi Plant, where they are bringing in girls for apprenticeship opportunities and experience on working on the shopfloor
• Annually engage with 150+ colleges that offer STEM curriculum via a dedicated program focused on breaking gender barriers in STEM and Supply Chain. The company will also work with NITIE towards tackling on-ground, perception-based and opportunity-linked barriers with an aim to double the gender ratio on NITIE campus over the next 5 years
• P&G is introducing ‘Share the Care’, a new inclusive parental leave policy in India. This will entitle all new parents including biological parents, domestic partners, adoptive parents, parents in same-sex couples to 8 weeks of fully paid parental leave.