Asia Programme

In December 2013 the two-yearly programme developed by Inditex and Cáritas Española for the integral community development in two Asian countries, Bangladesh and Cambodia, came to an end, having directly benefited more than 67,000 people in rural areas.

Cambodia

The intervention aims to guarantee food safety and promote a sustainable model of social community development. The project has also contributed to improving healthcare, in particular the health of mothers and children, as well as reducing malnutrition. The intervention model based on the empowerment and strengthening of community structures and their connection with the public health system enabled the integration of the most vulnerable groups in the process of sustainable development.

Bangladesh

The programme supports the integral promotion and development of the indigenous adivasi communities to improve their living conditions through vocational training and rural development in marginal areas. The aims of this programme are to give training to adolescents and women who have abandoned education or never had access to education, increase the opportunities for means of sustainable life, especially among women, and to raise awareness of human rights.

Through these objectives, the intention is to contribute to empowering women by promoting income generation activities amongst enterprising women and influencing their leadership in the community. The programme has helped to improve the living conditions of a total of 9,215 direct beneficiaries.

Brazil Programme

Each year the Brazilian state of São Paulo receives a large number of immigrants, principally from Peru, Bolivia and Paraguay, who come to the country in order to work, mainly in the manufacturing industry.

In this context, through its support for the Centro de Direitos Humanos e Cidadania do Imigrante (CDHIC), the Centro de Apoio ao Imigrante (CAMI) and the Missão Paz in 2013 Inditex contributed to regularising the immigrant population, thereby helping to make official immigrants’ work in the textile industry. Aid was also given in humanitarian emergency situations, mainly in the form of food and accommodation.

In 2013, Inditex also financed a new collaboration project with the Secretary of Citizenship and Justice of the State of São Paulo. The project will help to create a reference centre to attend to the needs of the immigrant population in the areas of regularisation, professional training and insertion in the labour market. The centre is expected to open in 2014 and will have the capacity to attend to around 1,000 immigrants a day.

Programme to promote employment in Spain for people in a situation or at risk of social exclusion

The ongoing collaboration between Inditex and Cáritas in Spain aims to develop formulae that favour employment and facilitate the incorporation of the most vulnerable populations into the labour market.

Throughout 2013, support was given to innovative projects that contribute to improving the chances of finding work for the vulnerable, while fostering and protecting the creation of new jobs and facilitating the consolidation of existing jobs.

In 2013 some 428 jobs were created or maintained and 34 employment projects were developed. Furthermore, 1,339 people took part in the initiatives to make use of the ordinary undertaking and promotion of the social economy. The achieved insertion rate was 37%, while the chances of finding work were improved for 85% of the people taking part in the projects.