Our monthly Academic Interest (AI) sessions are conducted to promote professional development by enabling our team to learn from each other and external experts. Vimala Desouza, our most recent speaker, has over two decades of experience as a special educator and inclusion professional in India, Europe and the Mideast. Her talk on ‘Skills Development and Employment of Youth with Disabilities’ drew from her professional experience as well as from having grown up with a disabled sibling – her brother Ramakrishnan ‘RK’ Narayanaswamy is an acclaimed foot artist with cerebral palsy. “As a close-knit family, we’ve seen a transformation in our lives and surroundings to accommodate an individual with special needs. He’s the reason special education and inclusion are my passions, why I believe all establishments and locations should be accessible to all types of individuals and why everyone should be aware about this,” she says.
Vimala emphasised the importance of building skills from as early as age 10 with an emphasis on soft skills and independence. These could be as varied as typing, learning to make a cup of tea and sandwich, crossing roads and using public transport, using social media safely, and sending text or voice messages. Identify a child’s strengths and interests and equip them with both the social and work skills to conduct themselves in a professional environment. Family support, encouragement to persevere, and acceptance in the workplace are essential to enabling disabled people thrive on the job.
A variety of vocational training courses are offered at institutions such as Montfort and Guest Institute in Goa. Orchvate, Bangalore, trains candidates on data annotation. With the equality, dignity and respect of disabled people protected by the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, many employment opportunities exist for disabled individuals. Among the best-known employers are companies such as Lemon Tree and KYC.
Individuals or organisations interested in starting vocational training centres should begin by approaching families to understand the demand, contacting schools with disabled students, and maintaining a database of how many youth are work-ready. Alongside, they must network with corporates to explore opportunities and conduct sensitisation workshops for employees and management at every level.
The one-and-a-half hour session spilled overtime as our team asked questions. Thank you for sharing your expertise, Vimala! With disabled youth often last in and first out, we look forward to seeing a large-scale positive shift in their inclusion in the workplace.