Training Women Retailers – Makes Business & Social Sense

Women already are the most dynamic and fastest-growing economic force in the world today. A lot of them are retailers’ of HCCB’s products. There exists a strong correlation between women’s empowerment and GDP growth, business growth, environmental sustainability and improved human health.

This is the reason HCCB runs a program called ‘Pragati,’ a retail training program that helps engage, motivate, train and empower prospective women retailers in rural India to be a part of the economic upswing in India.

The Pragati program is focused on building the retailing capabilities of women entrepreneurs by providing training, product knowledge and business start-up support to women retailers. The program is conducted by HCCB, mostly in its own factories. Over 50,000 women have been supported under this programme so far.

Women retailers across the country are indeed happy to be receiving this training and expertise. “It (the training) has been very useful and has provided us an opportunity to learn new things. We are thankful to HCCB for thinking about us and training us for free. We feel very happy and we will tell other women about this program as well,” says one of the participants of the programme.