ASIA PACIFIC. Shiseido Travel Retail is celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD) 2023 by highlighting the positive impact of its ‘Empower Her’ programme. The programme, originally launched in 2020, seeks to advance gender equity and equality both inside and outside the organisation.
To support IWD 2023’s global theme #EmbraceEquity, Shiseido Travel Retail has teamed up with non-profit organisation Friends-International, to offer tailored education and training to Southeast Asian women and youth through the Empower Her programme.
The programme is guided by the group’s corporate mission, ‘Beauty innovations for a better world’. It supports Shiseido Travel Retail’s societal goals to help elevate women in society and promote gender equality.
The joint project with Friends-International provides education and training services to almost 300 marginalised women in Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and Thailand to help them become productive members of society.
Established in 1994, Friends-International has been expanding through an innovative partnership model under the banner ‘Together, Building Futures’. Its main goal is to end the poverty cycle through vocational training, by offering access to employment and by assisting micro-business start-ups. [Friends-International was also charity partner for the Moodie Davitt Duty Calls Charity Dinner in Singapore in 2019.]
“As we mark International Women’s Day, it gives me great pride to acknowledge the social impact that the ‘Empower Her’ programme has had on hundreds of lives in Cambodia,” commented Shiseido Travel Retail President and CEO Philippe Lesné.
“In harnessing the power of beauty, we have been able to promote equity by providing sustainable support to help marginalised women and girls thrive – and the initial results have been heartening. We look forward to expanding the ‘Empower Her’ scheme in new ways in close collaboration with our employees and charity partners as we seek to advance a society that embraces diversity and supports lives of beauty.”
Friends-International Founder & Executive Director Sébastien Marot added: “At Friends-International, our mission is to save the lives and build the futures of the most marginalised children in the world. Our social programmes and projects, such as the Friends Futures Factory, have brightened the communities of the youth and women involved by empowering them to become independent and integrated into society – as part of our longstanding commitment to foster equity.
“This important work is made possible due to the generous donations from companies such as Shiseido Travel Retail, and we thank the team for their support.”
Shiseido Travel Retail is also contributing to building a sustainable future through Friends-International’s beauty vocational training programme at the Friends Futures Factory (F3). The F3 project is a vocational training and creative hub that offers beauty, hospitality and customer service training that help prepare participants for careers in the beauty and travel industries.
Shiseido Travel Retail has been supporting the F3 programme through both funding and product donation. Shiseido is planning to enhance F3’s beauty curriculum by developing resources and upskilling trainers. F3 has trained almost 300 students in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap with over 100 women in employment and set up with sustainable beauty salon businesses.
Shiseido Travel Retail has also engaged its employees and partners with the annual Shiseido Camellia Day event which encourages a culture of giving back. Shiseido Camellia Day runs various initiatives to support Friends-International and other non-profit organisations. In the past, this has included a Virtual Ideathon to brainstorm creative solutions to key women’s issues in 2021 and a Walkathon to raise funds in 2022.
The Shiseido Camellia Fund, the company’s social contribution programme, provides ongoing support for Friends-International and other non-profit organisations through employee donation-matching initiatives and by contributing on behalf of partners during the holiday period.
Last Christmas, instead of giving a Christmas package/gift to its key partners, Shiseido Travel Retail donated US$150 to partners’ chosen charities on their behalf as part of the Shiseido Camellia Fund.✈
Note: The Moodie Davitt Report has launched an e-newsletter, Beauty Curated, in association with Shiseido. It offers a curated selection of stories focused on the key beauty category in travel retail and beyond.
To subscribe free of charge please email Kristyn@MoodieDavittReport.com headed ‘Curated Beauty’. All stories are permanently archived on this website. If you would like to be added to its mailing list (or to those for any other Moodie Davitt titles), please click here.
