NEW BEGINNINGS The disabled break prejudice barrier to enter workforce......MALIA POLITZER It's difficult for the disabled to earn a living, but some determined people are helping to change that
No one would ever accuse Laxmi Ade of lacking determination. A bright young woman of 23, dressed in a sunny yellow sari, she sits with about a dozen other girls in an airy outdoor classroom, listening intently to the teacher lecture. Every so often, Ade enthusiastically chimes in with a question or comment. Looking at her sitting, demure but confident, among her peers, it might surprise an outside observer to learn that Ade is of- ficially 90% disabled. She cannot use either of her legs, and "walks" by dragging herself along the ground with her hands. Despite the dual disadvantages of a physical disability and poverty--she comes from a family of daily wage-labourers in rural Andhra Pradesh--Ade man aged to complete college. For four years, Ade roused herself at 5am to take the two- and-one-half hour bus trip to college. >From the bus stop, she'd "walk" the re- maining distance on her hands in order >to get to her classes, sometimes in the rain. She graduated in 2009 with a bachelor's in science only to find herself at a stand- still--despite her new degree, no one would hire her because she was disabled. But that could soon change. Ade is attending a vocational training programme at the Centre for People with Disability Livelihoods (CPDL), piloted by the Wadhwani Foundation in partnership with the Andhra Pradesh government, aimed at preparing rural youth (age 18-28) with physical disabilities to take sustainable, private-sector jobs in cities. The programme first approaches companies in a variety of sectors--such as information technology (IT) and hospitality--to assess their needs, then develops curriculum in order to train qualified job candidates, and finally matches trained candidates with companies for interviews. It operates on the premise that people with disabilities shouldn't be hired based on a company's commitment to corporate social responsibility--but on the candidates' skills and capacity for meaningful contribution. The public-private partnership is just one piece of a much larger, more ambitious project. The Wadhwani Foundation has committed to train at least 100,000 people with disabilities, and facilitate their placement in sustainable, private- sector jobs throughout India by 2012. To achieve this end, the foundation has forged partnerships with the Andhra Pradesh government, Dr Reddy's Foundation, and the American Indian Foundation (AIF). Collectively, the partners are simultaneously launching different models of training programmes for the disabled throughout India. If successful, it will be one of the largest employment ini- tiatives benefiting people with disabilities in the country's history. Laxmi Ade intends to be one of the successful candidates. If placed, she will be the highest earner in her entire family, and the first to work in the formal sector. For Ade, such an opportunity means achieving a life-long dream. "I want a job," she says simply. "I want to stand on my own two feet." India is not a good place to be a person with disabilities. By optimistic estimates, only 35% of India's estimated 20-60 million disabled have jobs--most of which are low-paying, and in the informal economy. The employment of people with disabilities in the formal sector is nearly non- existent. Very few buildings in India are wheelchair accessible. Without the ability to access schools, the rate of education for people with disabilities is significantly less than their able-bodied peers. "There are companies that come to us looking to hire people with disabilities but are unable to find suitable candidates," says Dr Javed Abidi, director of the Delhi-based National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP). "Employment is not possible without education. Neither employment nor education are possible without accessibility." Even having the proper qualifications often isn't always sufficient in securing steady work. In a village in the district of Karimnagar in rural Andhra Pradesh, 28-year-old Raju Sardar sits with 16 others on a dusty blue tarp in the afternoon heat to listen to a pitch for the training programme by one of the CPDL recruiters. Sardar absently rubs his left leg, shrivelled from polio. Sardar graduated from college over four years ago with a bachelor's in science, and has been looking for work ever since. After countless interviews with employers who inevitably turned him down, preferring more "mobile" hires, he gave up. Now a husband and father to a three- year-old girl, the family relies on the `2,000 brought back by his daily-labourer wife. Sardar minds his family's shop. "People look at me and they see my disability. They don't see my abilities." For Romesh Wadhwani, 63, founder and CEO of Symphony Technology Group and founder of the Wadhwani Foundation, these challenges are personal. Wadhwani himself--a multi-billionaire and among the 400 wealthiest men in the world--contracted polio as a child. Born in Bombay, he made his fortune in Silicon Valley as an entrepreneur. He sold his company, Aspect, for $9 billion in 1999 (`41,220 crore today), founding the Wadhwani Foundation the following year. The job-placement programme is one of the more ambitious projects funded by the foundation, and the first of its kind to facilitate the large-scale employment of people with disabilities in India. "Differently-abled individuals need special help to achieve their full potential," he says via email from his home in Silicon Valley in California. "They do not have the opportunity to explore, let alone reach their full potential. With the right enablement and support, these individuals can not only achieve their potential but also contribute more value to society." The biggest challenge to the programme may be finding people to participate in it. Gopal Garg, manager of the Wadhwani Foundation's Organizational Network for Disability (OND), recalls a story about a young girl with cerebral palsy whose family wanted to keep her existence hidden from the outside world. For years she was not allowed to leave the house, even for physio- therapy, let alone attend school. It isn't an uncommon story, he says. "There's a large stigma attached to disability in India," says Garg. "So many families keep them hidden. They do not think they can contribute--they just have them come out to collect pensions and don't think they can do anything on their own." Even when potential candidates have been identified, they often take convincing before they'll agree to sign on. "They suffer from very low selfes- teem," says Meera Shenoy, executive director at OND, who also runs CPDL. "This might be the first time in their lives they've been told that they are capable of doing anything for themselves. It takes a while to sink in." Families also re- sist allowing their children to leave the villages for training--particularly the girls, she says. And few candidates will go with- out their families' explicit support. To overcome these obstacles, CPDL has adopted a public-private partnership (PPP) with the Andhra Pradesh governmental programme--the Society for the Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP). The society opens its network of self- help groups for women and the disabled in rural areas to CPDL recruiters (all of whom are youth with disabilities) and funds training. CPDL, in turn, approaches companies and manages training. AIF manages recruitment slightly dif- ferently, relying on a combination of one- on-one outreach, "roadshows"--such as plays performed in front of large groups in slums near training centres--and relationships with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and government to identify candidates. "We aim to be innovative," says Shenoy. "By March-end, we'll have three different models which will give us lessons on how to scale." On the top of a hill overlooking the Andhra Pradesh capital Hyderabad is a roomy, open building with marble floors and a sunny outdoor garden. Inside, a classroom of young women sit in cheery red chairs in a computer lab freshly painted forest green, tentatively following the keystrokes of an animated typing programme. Outside, another class of students sits in plastic lawn chairs in a shady open classroom, listening raptly to the teacher's lecture on the "soft" skills necessary to be successful telecom employee. Shenoy calls the building her "model training centre", and hopes it will act as a template for newer centres. All partner programmes rely on a "market scan" of potential employers to assess what jobs are available, and what skills they require. Those who are vision impaired can be trained for medical transcription. The hard of hearing do well in hospitality. The Andhra Pradesh training centre is furthest along--having already placed two batches. The Dr Reddy's Foundation is in the process of building training centres in Chennai and Ahmedabad, and hopes to have 150 people in jobs by March. Beginning early December, the AIF will begin integrating students with disabilities into their preexisting market- aligned skills training (MAST) programme. A vocational training programme for youth from urban slums, MAST has already successfully placed at least 53,000 rural youth in private sector jobs, and boasts a 75% placement rate. They have committed to training and placing 1,500 youth with disabilities in jobs within the first 18 months. "There's already demand from the in- dustry," says Hanumant Rawat, AIF direc- tor of livelihoods. "There are certain jobs where the productivity of the differently- abled is two-to-three times higher than normal youth, because they are less prone to distraction." Muni Reddy, one of the recruits from the first batch at the Hyderabad training centre, was hired for a data entry job at HDB Financial Services Ltd, a subsidiary of HDFC Bank Ltd. Before learning of the Hyderabad training programme, the polio victim says he worried he would always be a burden on his family. "Now, I am the only one with a steady paycheck," he says, a shy smile playing across his lips. He sits up a little straighter in his chair. "I'm the one supporting them." 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