MAS Holdings doubles empowerment commitment to UN Foundation amid COVID-19

A group activity from ‘Train the Trainer’ programme on women’s health for MAS associates

MAS Holdings, the largest and leading design-to-delivery apparel solutions provider in South Asia, renewed its commitment yesterday to empower more of its employees by extending its original undertaking to provide health and well-being education and services focusing on sexual and reproductive health and awareness on gender-based violence, to its employees and the communities adjacent to its manufacturing locations. 

Having surpassed the target of 10,000 beneficiaries since its commitment in June 2019, MAS doubled its commitment to reach 20,000 beneficiaries by the original 2021 timeline. 

The company formalised its new commitment at the virtual parallel event of the 75th session of the UN General Assembly, co-hosted by the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA) and Universal Access Project of the UN Foundation (UNF).

MAS Holdings was one of the 11 trailblazing global companies that committed to improving the health and well-being of its workers and community members around the world in 2019, through the UNF’s Universal Access Project and its Private Sector Action for Women’s Health and Empowerment Initiative. 

The company outlined bold, measurable and time-bound plans to empower its employees through highly focused programmes anchored to its globally acclaimed hallmark women’s empowerment platform, ‘Women Go Beyond’ (WGB), in alignment with SDGs 3 and 5, among others. 

With women making up 70 percent of the company’s 99,000 global workforce, MAS identified a fundamental requirement to support and empower its female employees early in its operation. Standalone initiatives that helped women soon started showing results and began to scale into larger, long-term programmes. 

“We are proud to announce the expansion of our commitment to the UNF’s Universal Access Project and its Private Sector Action for Women’s Health and Empowerment,” Women’s Empowerment, Advocacy and Code of Conduct Deputy General Manager Thanuja Jayawardene said during the virtual event. 

“Gender equality is a core value for us as an organisation and we have an expansive framework to drive this agenda, focusing on economic, social and personal empowerment. We see health, well-being and freedom from gender-based violence as basic requirements, to developing female leaders for our businesses and our communities. This is a journey and we have a long way to go, implementing meaningful change.”

As MAS Holdings fast adapts and recovers in a post-COVID landscape, it lies tethered to its founding value of first and foremost being responsible for the safety, health and well-being of its employees.