Member Spotlight: Proctor and Gamble
As the world addresses COVID-19, P&G is committed to supporting communities and women in every way we can.
In Singapore, P&G continues to support in enabling women business capabilities and strengthening business ecosystem during these times of crisis. On 29 May 2020, we successfully completed the 2020 Singapore’s Edition of the Women Entrepreneurs Development Program (WEDP). 22 women business owners representing diverse businesses in Singapore, went through 23+ hours of online training by 17 P&G and external trainers across 13 sessions. This program is a crucial part of P&G #WeSeeEqual in promoting women’s economic progress, a key element of our sustained focus on gender equality.
A global program launched in 2016 by P&G in partnership with WeConnect International, the WEDP reflects P&G’s commitment to support women business owners to grow their businesses acumen and eventually expand their businesses by working with multinational companies like P&G. While this specific program started in 2016, P&G’s focus on supplier diversity including developing women-owned businesses started in 1976 in the US. Today, only in the US, we invest over $2.5 Billion annually with diverse-owned companies including women-owned, minority-owned, LGBT-owned, and US Military Veteran-owned companies. Beyond the US and Singapore, the program has been run in China, Turkey, South Africa, Mexico, Nigeria, India, Brazil, Costa Rica, Indonesia and Japan.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we needed to repurpose the program completely from a face-to-face event to 100% online. The Core Team members started brainstorming on how to transition the training sessions to a digital version over the weeks, and managed to make this happen in these unprecedented times.
What’s next? We are planning a virtual graduation ceremony in August 2020.
In addition, P&G Singapore stepped up to support the local community in need including women behind our #ForceforGood Program. In May, we distributed 500 carepacks to mothers of Special Olympics athletes to recognize their continuous work in bringing up their children to achieve their full potential. In June, we distributed 300 carepacks to foreign domestic workers to help support and encourage them through the COVID-19 period.
We faced the challenge to do the packing and distribution during Circuit Breaker period. We are grateful to have P&G employees and partners volunteer their time to make these contributions to the community in Singapore possible, while abiding the social distancing measures.
