MAS Holdings, Asia’s largest apparel group rewarded 32 women employees at MAS last week, under its MAS Women Go Beyond programme, recognizing them as women who have come up in life overcoming great challenges.

“Women contribute to 80% of our net profit and 90% of them work for the apparel industry. Recognising  this prominent  and predominant role made by women, in 2003, the Women Go Beyond  programme was started and it aims at empowering women both at the work place and beyond,” Mahesh Amalen, Director-MAS Holdings said.

MAS initiated the Women Go Beyond programme as an ethical practice at workplace to support its women employees. The programme  covers the four main aspects of supporting career advancement  work- life balance, skills development and rewarding excellence.

“The key components of this programme included knowledge acquisition, awareness, leadership skills, attitudal changes, work-life and personal-life harmony,” Amalean said.

The empowered women under the Women Go Beyond programme come from less privileged backgrounds and have undergone hardships and trauma but overcome them uniquely.

The key objective of the programmes was stated as to help the woman secure herself  in her knowledge and abilities and develop her career and aspirations against the demands of her personal life.

“MAS Holdings is a global signatory to the UN Global Compact and it is a global benchmark for initiativeschampioning the cause of women’s empowerment,” Amalean added.

The day the award ceremony was held, November 25 being the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women was called  significant as the Women Go Beyond programme this year  initiated an awareness  campaign on the prevention of violence against women, with the  objective of educating the MAS Holdings female workforce on the varied  forms and  facets of violence against women and guiding on responding and seeking assistance when faced with violence and its related issues.

Stating that the strength of MAS Holdings lies on thousands of women, Dian Gomes, Group Director-MAS Holdings said that the company has been able to assist Ruwini Abeymanna to excel in her international shooting sport career, and make her one of the winners of the 2011 Empowered Women of the Year Award.

The award ceremony was attended by Anoja Weerasinghe as the Chief Guest.