Moving Forward: ILO Highlights Meaningful Employment Opportunities

Kodhawe Khattiyot, a 23-year old woman from the North of Thailand, was born without feet. After learning of the Redemptorist Vocational School for the Disabled, she applied to study computer science with an emphasis on programming. After graduating, she secured a job as a freelance web designer, which allowed her to work from home. Having established herself with an in-demand vocational expertise, she then managed to secure a full-time job with a salary comparable with that enjoyed by other graduates with a bachelor's degree.

Founded in the 1980s by Father Raymond Brennan, a Catholic priest living in Thailand, the school grew to house and train about 240 people with physical disabilities, including men and women from Bangladesh, Cambodia and the Lao People's Democratic Republic. Even in the 1980s, Father Brennan could see that computers would become indispensable features of the workplace.

Suporntum Mongkolsawadi, the principal of the school, believes that teamwork among the staff and students is the school's most significant accomplishment.

"There is a strong willingness among everyone to make the programme succeed."

In Cambodia, the ILO provided technical assistance to the World Rehabilitation Fund, an international NGO, to develop a partnership between employers and organizations providing vocational services to people with disabilities. The Business Advisory Council (BAC), a network of volunteers from business, is at the heart of the partnership, working in tandem with existing job training and employment programmes to help people find a better life through employment.

Eng Naleak, disabled from birth with fingers missing and impaired mobility, seldom went beyond her home in a distant village before joining an IT training programme at Wat Than Skills Training Centre. Now she works as a data entry clerk in Phnom Penh.

"I love my job and never dreamed my life would be like this," she says. She now earns a good living and is able to send money home to her family.

The region's continuing commitment to promote the rights of people with disabilities is remarkable, however, despite the passage of legislation and disability-positive policies over the past decade, people with disabilities remain disproportionately poor, unemployed and excluded.

Moving Forward will inspire policymakers, service providers and people with disabilities toward more creative solutions to the challenges people with disabilities face in accessing training and employment. Access to such opportunities is crucial in order for people with disabilities to escape of avoid poverty.

For further information, please contact:
Stephen Thompson
Public Information Officer
ILO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Tel: (66 2) 288-2482
Fax: (66 2) 288-1076
Email: thompsons@ilo.org

Moving Forward: Towards Decent Work in India & Sri Lanka
Progressive Employer Finds Wealth of Ability
BANGKOK (ILO NEWS) - While people with disabilities in Asia and the Pacific continue to face enormous challenges in securing decent work, Moving Forward highlights examples of good practices from government, non-government and partnership programmes that are paving a way to meaningful employment opportunities in the region.

"I had always felt scared about my future" recalls Hirak Jyoti Rakshit, a cheerful person who enjoys dance and acting. Hirak, a 24-year old man with cerebral palsy, is now self-employed, working with his mother in their home-based business providing screen and press printing and office stationary. The Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy (IICP) 's Adult Training Centre (ATC)'s individual counselling helped Hirak recognize his abilities, including entrepreneurship.

Having set up his business in 1999, former IICP trainers urged Hirak to expand the business after only a year and apply for a loan from the National Handicapped Finance Development Corp., a funding agency within the Ministry of Social Justice and Employment.

The ATC provides time-bound training for open and self-employment through links with business, government and universities, helps young people cope on their own with guidance and counselling for trainees and their families, and involves a family member in training alongside students interested in establishing family-based businesses.

In Sri Lanka, CEI Plastics, a private company that manufactures plastic moulded products for industry, has played a key role in promoting the employment of people with disabilities. It employs 40 men and women with disabilities in the workshop, stores, injection-moulding packing line and blow-moulding packaging section and as general workers who are required to move around among different tasks in the factory.

Since disabled workers are distributed throughout the factory and are not confined to one particular activity or location, disabled workers are visible because of their disability, but at the same time difficult to locate as they have integrated so well with their able bodies colleagues.

"Disabled workers are eager to learn, easy to teach and generally more conscientious than their able-bodied peers," says CEI Manager Anver Dole. "Their production is often way above the average, and they interact very well with other employees."

Employer' Network on Disability
The Employers' Network on Disability uses CEI as a role model to demonstrate that the productivity of workers with disabilities is equal to, and sometimes exceeds that of other employees. CEI, meanwhile, is looking to hire more people with disabilities, according to Dole.

The region's continuing commitment to promote the rights of people with disabilities is remarkable, however, despite the passage of legislation and disability-positive policies over the past decade, people with disabilities remain disproportionately poor, unemployed and excluded.

Moving Forward will inspire policymakers, service providers and people with disabilities toward more creative solutions to the challenges people with disabilities face in accessing training and employment. Access to such opportunities is crucial in order for people with disabilities to escape of avoid poverty.

For further information, please contact: Stephen Thompson, contact information above.

Moving Forward: Creating Decent Employment in China
BANGKOK (ILO NEWS) - While people with disabilities in Asia and the Pacific continue to face enormous challenges in securing decent work, Moving Forward highlights examples of good practices from government, non-government and partnership programmes that are paving a way to meaningful employment opportunities in the region.

Ho, aged 47, has worked on the full-time staff of the Rehabilitation Alliance Hong Kong (RAHK)'s 7-11 partnership convenience store for eight years. His boss described his performance as a cashier as "excellent".

Ho finds his current work more rewarding than his years of work in different factories. "It was unbearable," he says of his previous employment. "The other workers looked down on me and told me I would never be very much in life except a factory worker." He found the 7-11 position through open recruitment. "I enjoy life more now," he says, adding, "not only does my present job give me respect, security and job satisfaction, but also lets me live independently." Ho has now taken on a team leader role and assists in training new staff members.

Members of the RAHK dreamt of a tangible example of a business operated by people with disabilities in the mid-1990s. Following careful deliberation and analysis, the group saw convenience and opportunity in numbers: 7-11. In 1995, RAHK teamed up with the Hong Kong 7-11 Convenience Store Company and bought franchise rights for two stores and hired 22 employees, 17 of whom had some kind of disability. Ever since, the business and workers have flourished and the RAHK is now expanding.

In mainland China, the Green Certificate Training Project is a national programme aimed at improving farming practices and farmers' agriculture skills. In Tieli county, Heilongjiang province, a Green Certificate programme includes education in the skill of raising scorpions, which are used in Chinese medicine. This caught the attention of Fei Ziyu, a physically disabled man.

In his first year of tending scorpions (4,000 of them), Fei increased his annual income to 3,000 yuan (US$ 360). Overjoyed with his success, Fei volunteered to train other physically disabled men and women. Raising scorpions is just one example of skills taught to people with disabilities in rural areas. Training courses focus on applying new skills to areas requiring low investment that lead to a significant rise in income.

The region's continuing commitment to promote the rights of people with disabilities is remarkable, however, despite the passage of legislation and disability-positive policies over the past decade, people with disabilities remain disproportionately poor, unemployed and excluded.

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