CB Bureau In the very beginning of the year, a news story in one of
the leading dailies of the country talked about how one wedding matchmaking
website was cashing in on the ‘ability matrimony’ platform.
BharatMatrimony, as part of its corporate social
responsibility (CSR) initiative, thought of connecting people with disabilities
including physical impairment, mobility impairment, hemiplegia, spinal
impairment, vision impairment, learning disability, quadriplegia and
paraplegia. They offered the entire service – from registration to seeking the
right match – for free. The idea was to get all people with special needs, and
those who wanted to marry them, on the same platform.
Interestingly, what makes this initiative special is not
just the idea, but also the fact that the service is being provided for free
and is a part of the CSR initiative of a dotcom/digital venture. Such
CSR-oriented investment by a dotcom company in a country (with merely four per
cent of the population using internet) where internet businesses are still at a
nascent stage, is highly commendable.
Another fact to be acknowledged is that the company has
focused on the ‘disability’ cause, which – for unknown reasons – does not rank
high on the CSR initiatives list of many companies and is under-shadowed by
environment, education, or public health.
NASSCOM initiatives
for the disabled
Another organization that talks about ‘total inclusion’ is
NASSCOM Foundation (NF), the social development arm of NASSCOM, India’s premier
information technology (IT) industry body. The organization is engaged in
empowering and enabling persons with disabilities (PwDs) in the IT workforce.
To mark World Disability Day on December 3, 2010, NASSCOM
Foundation launched a series of activities all across India, starting with the
release of a Document on Workplace Inclusivity listing five principles that
enable and empower PwDs, at NASSCOM’s Diversity & Inclusivity Summit 2010
held in Bangalore on November 22.
‘The government has a target to ensure that three per cent
of the workforce are PwDs. NASSCOM, through its Accessibility Initiative, is
pushing hard to ensure that IT companies create policies, ease physical access
to workplaces, and use assistive technologies. Some IT companies are doing some
groundbreaking work here. We, at NASSCOM Foundation, want to encourage this and
have released a document containing the principles and best practices to employ
persons with disability. We will also have job fairs and volunteering and
career counselling workshops for persons with disabilities,’ Rita Soni, CEO of
NASSCOM Foundation, had said during the release of the document.
The organization did host a job fair for persons with
disabilities on December 10, 2010, in New Delhi. The fair promoted employment
not on the basis of compassion or reservation, but purely on their capabilities
and their qualifications.
On December 16, 2010, the foundation organized a
volunteering session in Kolkata for the employees of NASSCOM member companies.
The session took the volunteers through an experience at an NGO, in order to
sensitize employees to the challenges faced by PwDs.
NASSCOM Foundation also initiated the Accessibility
Initiative in 2010. The initiative aims to create an industry platform to empower
people with disabilities, using the collective strength of NASSCOM member
companies. It has approached the issue through awareness building for
employment, physical (barrier-free workplace) and web accessibility, and
assistive technology.
From Tata Steel
As part of its CSR, Tata Steel, too, claims that it believes
in empowering the marginalized sections of society. The company, on a regular
basis, also organizes sporting events and cultural programmes for the
physically challenged.
On World Disability Day, 2010, to acknowledge that the
challenged ones are an equal and important part of the community, the company
organized a sports event. Around 200 visually impaired, hearing impaired and
physically challenged special children participated in the event.
Tata Steel Rural Development Society organizes camps for
people afflicted with leprosy. It works closely with various organizations to
demonstrate self-care to those who suffer from leprosy and also distributes
self-care kits. It also selects patients for reconstructive surgery.
IBM technology for
disabled
IBM says that it believes in using its core competency ”
technology – to help solve some of the key issues of society. It developed
Reading Companion, a programme to increase literacy among children and adults.
It is a speech-recognition technology for the classroom. Accessibility is
another programme designed specially to make technology accessible to groups
who are conventionally not associated with using technology ”
physically/mentally challenged or socially/economically backward people.
IBM India supported the entire hardware and software
requirements for computer centres at Victoria Memorial School for the Blind in
Mumbai, Mitra Jyothi Centre for People with Disabilities in Bengaluru, and
IETE-IBM computer centre, Noida, all of which are dedicated to providing IT
skills to visually impaired people.
IBM professes commitment to an inclusive work environment
where ideas and contributions are welcome regardless of gender, disability,
ethnicity, or sexual orientation. The IBM website says that it hired its first
person with disability in 1914. With almost a 100-year heritage of commitment,
IBM’s Policy for People with Disabilities has since revolved around the 3As:
Accommodation: Facilities that IBM provides to enable
employees to work more independently and productively
Accessibility: Providing people with disabilities the
technology tools in the workplace and in the marketplace, such as
voice-recognition software – the HomePage reader. Currently, there are nine
Accessibility centres worldwide, each focusing on designing and deploying
products appropriate for people with disabilities
Attitude: Changing the values and beliefs that some
people have with regard to people with disabilities is very important. IBM
actively recruits, hires and promotes people with disabilities. IBM helps
promote an attitude of non-discrimination and offers opportunities to deserving
individuals
In India, in addition to e-learning resources that focus
specifically on building commitment to people with disability, IBM has a
face-to-face Diversity & Inclusive Leadership training programme that is
aimed to promote an inclusive workplace.
IBM has also initiated meetings with PwD employees to
understand and address their unique concerns. It has established a voluntary
PwD Network – EnABLErs at IBM, which is a forum in which PwD joinees can
participate, especially when they are new to IBM. It has empanelled NGOs
who are working to provide companies with qualified PwD candidates and assist
them on this ongoing journey.
MphasiS on disability
The MphasiS website reads that its CSR is focused around
three areas – education, employability and entrepreneurship development.
The company claims that when it wanted to hire and invest in
professionally sound persons with disabilities, it faced the challenge of not
getting the right candidates. So, it took the first step to drive the change
and introduce new initiatives.
The company realized that in most of the technical
institutions – like engineering and management schools – only students with
milder disabilities were given admission. Those who struggled their way through
did not get any academic support from the institution to perform on par with
other non-disabled students. As a result of lack of support and access in the
educational institutions, students with disabilities had a challenge becoming
work-ready.
As a first pioneering step in creating inclusive environment
in a professional institution, MphasiS supported setting up of an Office of
Disability Services at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Not many
institutes have any mechanism to provide academic support to students with
disabilities. MphasiS in partnership with institutes like the IIM has begun
introducing professional education for students with disabilities.
The company has a lot of ‘non-voice jobs’ where interaction
with the client is through email and chat. Keeping in mind the constraints of
the jobs, it hired persons with hearing disabilities in such processes.
However, lack of skills in written English has resulted in people with hearing
disability not getting suitable employment. To tackle this, MphasiS entered
into a partnership with Noida Deaf Society in 2010. It is now supporting
English literacy of 250 hearing-impaired youth and also training them in skills
that would lead to their becoming employable.
The company has over 27 hearing-impaired people working in
non-voice BPO and ITO processes. It also outsources work to NGOs like Enable
India, which becomes a tool of indirect employment of persons with
disabilities.
MphasiS has also partnered with Fourthwave Foundation to
support a programme aimed at inclusion of children with disabilities in
mainstream schools.