Goals and progress
Community investment | Our program in action
Advancing women, P.A.C.E.
Location: India
Summary: Women play a critical role in the apparel industry — comprising approximately 80 percent of the world’s garment workers. Women also play a vital role in the future of societies. When we help a woman in a developing country to better her life, she's able to make positive changes in the lives of her children, her family and her community.
Many worthy programs in the developing world focus on helping women gain employment. In 2006, we created the Gap Inc. P.A.C.E. (Personal Advancement, Career Enhancement) program which helps female garment works in developing countries advance beyond entry-level positions and fulfill their potential through education.
The program leverages our relationships with key vendor partners who have welcomed Gap Inc., the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) and a local non-governmental organization (NGO) to create an innovative factory-based education program.
We piloted the program in India, one of our largest sourcing markets. Together with the ICRW and Swasti Health Resources, our local NGO partner, we created a program based on the needs assessed at each participating factory location. The result was a two-phase training program that began in 2007.
The first phase of the program is a year-long, six-module course on life skills. The approximately 100 hours of training includes problem-solving, communications and decision-making as well as health, financial literacy and government entitlements. In India, participating women were given paid time off for a significant portion of the program, but were asked to invest their own time as well to ensure their personal ownership of the learning and their success. The first class graduated 280 women.
The second phase of the program focuses on aligning technical training with the workers’ learning abilities and technical potential. This part of the program is in its first pilot phase in India.
The ICRW has evaluated the first phase of the program, and the results are promising: Participating women demonstrate greater confidence in their ability to take on responsibilities and assume leadership roles. They show improved skills in resolving problems and supporting their peers. We have also noted positive impact in the areas of health knowledge, financial literacy and their families’ acceptance of greater mobility.
“One woman learned how to respectfully disagree, so now she is more valued in her home,” says Dotti Hatcher, senior director of Social and Community Investment at Gap Inc., who oversees P.A.C.E. “The more beautiful thing is, she values herself more.”
Based on the pilot’s success, P.A.C.E. is expanding to an additional factory location in India, and the second class has more than 300 participants. We have also launched the program in Cambodia in partnership with CARE Cambodia. The response in Cambodia is also strong, with 260 women in its first class.
