Kolkata: Procter & Gamble India (P&G India) has announced to partner with more than 50 educational institutes across the country to foster safe spaces and visible allies for the LGBTQ+ community to ‘Share The Pride’.
With ‘Share The Pride’, the Company will drive awareness and sensitize students, faculty, and staff in these educational institutes on conscious and sub-conscious biases, bust barriers and myths and spotlight challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community in a heteronormative environment.
As part of ‘Share The Pride’, P&G India will conduct workshops, dedicated sensitization sessions and awareness campaigns to educate the educational ecosystem about LGBTQ+ issues and challenges.
The program aims to educate various stakeholders in understanding how to create a supportive and inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ community. This reinforces the Company’s commitment towards promoting inclusivity and diversity beyond the workplace.
The Company also announced a new ‘Infertility Treatment’ policy to support employees and their partners with more inclusive opportunities for family planning. Under this policy, the Company will cover the expenses borne by employees and their partners for availing infertility treatments including Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) among others.
The new policy supports employees of diverse gender identities, sexual orientations, and family structures, in line with the Company’s continued commitment of fostering and reinforcing an equal and inclusive workplace for its people through inclusive policies, with genuine care being at the core of everything it does.
The policy has a significant impact on the LGBTQ+ community, as for many in the community, infertility treatments become the primary means of family planning. This opens out never-before options for employees who belong to the community and their partners.
Ankur Bhagat, Vice President – Product Supply & Executive Sponsor for LGBTQ+ Inclusion, P&G India said, “Educational institutes witness formative years when opinions are shaped, and ideologies are strengthened. We believe that this is the right stage to sensitize students, as well as other stakeholders around them, aiming to create safe spaces to foster and equal and inclusive society. Educational institutes thereby become a catalyst to fight bias, create dialogue and raise visibility for the LGBTQ+ community.”
Ankur Bhagat added, “There is no better time to expand our efforts, find new ways to reach the LGBTQ+ community, and reaffirm our commitment to creating a world that sees equal. Our policy upgrades are yet another endeavour in the effort towards recognizing evolving needs of our diverse workforce and support inclusive opportunities of family planning.”
With a mission to support the community within and beyond the workplace, the company has driven several partnerships and activations.
