Nestlé India celebrates International Women’s Day                                                                            

This International Women’s Day, Nestlé India reiterates its commitments to empowering women by encouraging education and inculcating entrepreneurial skills. To achieve this, as part of the ‘Nestlé in Society and ‘Creating Shared Value’ initiatives, the Company has been supporting women in the supply chain, through Village Women Dairy Development Programme, and adolescent girl students in the community, through its Sanitation Programme.

“At Nestlé we recognise and celebrate the role of women as a significant force not only in our talent pool, but also in the supply chain and in the community. We strongly believe that women empowerment enables competitiveness, growth and above all, a better society for all of us.” says Mr. Suresh Narayanan, Chairman and Managing Director, Nestlé India.

Nestlé India recognises the important role played by women in dairy farming as the primary caretakers of cattle and therefore has developed an education programme especially for women dairy farmers, the Village Women Dairy Development (VWDD) Programme. The objective of the programme is to empower women dairy farmers to improve milk quality and productivity, thereby increasing their earnings significantly. Over 62,000 village women across the states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan have benefitted from this programme.

Nestlé believes that education and empowerment of girl students can benefit the quality of life in communities. In order to promote attendance in schools and ensure availability of basic sanitation facilities, Nestlé India has been sponsoring the construction of sanitation facilities for girl students in village schools across all its factory locations. Through this initiative, Nestlé also endeavours to facilitate and remove what is considered to be the major cause of drop-outs. So far, Nestlé has built sanitation facilities in schools benefitting close to 81,000 girl students till date.