A group of 181 Brandix associates recently completed Gap Inc.’s Personal Advancement and Career Enhancement (P.A.C.E.) programme for female workers in the apparel industry.

The programme provides workers with foundational skills, technical training and support to help them advance in the workplace and in their personal lives. Three separate graduation ceremonies have been organised to recognise the achievement.

The third such batch to graduate in the past five years, the group included 29 associates from Brandix Fast Fashion I, Mirigama, 16 from Brandix Fast Fashion II, Mirigama, 41 from Brandix Fast Fashion, Minuwangoda, 33 from Brandix Essentials, Koggala, and 62 from Brandix Essentials, Rambukkana.

The P.A.C.E. programme that produced these graduates recorded an impressive retention rate of 87 percent this year. To date, 464 Brandix associates have completed the course, the company said.

Significantly, the P.A.C.E. programme for these associates was conducted by Brandix’s own internal trainers, some of who had previously graduated from the same course.

“Gap Inc.’s P.A.C.E. programme is designed to inspire and help female employees gain the skills and confidence they need to advance at work and in life,” Brandix CSR and Corporate Communications Head Anusha Alles said. “P.A.C.E. graduates have progressed well in their careers and contributed more to their workplaces, their peers and their families.”

Three P.A.C.E. graduates have been promoted to Group Leader and two as Technicians at Brandix Essentials; while two have been promoted as Trainee Mechanics, two as Technicians, and another two have received staff promotions at Brandix Fast Fashion, Alles disclosed.

These success stories are of M.K.S. Dilhani and Niluka Priyadarshani from Brandix Essentials, Koggala who began the P.A.C.E. course as team leaders and were promoted as group leaders ten months later; W.G.J.K. Ranwala and W.M.D.S. Wickramasinghe from Brandix Essentials, Rambukkana who began the course as team leaders and were promoted to group leader and trainee mechanic respectively eleven months later; S.D. Shanika Viduwanthi Dissanayaka and S.M.N. Rosani from Brandix Fast Fashion II, Mirigama who began the course as team leader and group leader and were promoted as trainee mechanic and technician respectively ten months later; and W.B.C. Priyadarshani Wijesinghe from Brandix Fast Fashion I, Mirigama began the course as group leader and was promoted to technician ten months later.

The course comprises of eight modules of life skills education including communication, problem solving and decision making, time and stress management, water, sanitation and hygiene, financial literacy, legal literacy and social entitlement, general and reproductive health and execution excellence.

Launched in 2007, Gap Inc. operates the P.A.C.E. programme in 16 countries including India, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and has trained more than 65,000 women. Research shows P.A.C.E. graduates are more productive, have lower rates of absenteeism and are promoted faster than factory workers who do not participate in the programme.

In addition to the P.A.C.E. programme, Brandix has also graduated 35 female mechanics that completed on-going in-house training courses on sewing machine maintenance and repair in yet another example of the group’s commitment to the empowerment of female employees.