From the States

Dibrugarh

Mumbai

New Delhi

SEWA organizes aids and appliances camp

SEWA organizes aids and appliances camp The Society for Enhancement of Welfare Activities (SEWA), a prominent NGO of Upper Assam, organized a free aids and appliance distribution camp at Phukon Nagar, Sivasagar recently.

A public meeting held on the occasion was chaired buy Dr Ashok Dutta, retired Additional Director of Health services.

Speaking on the occasion, Kalyan Gogio, member secretary, Assam State Advisory Committee for Sports and Youth Welfare, stressed the need of NGO participation in the overall development of society. He lamented the fact that a number of NGO have been misutilizing funds meant for development and appealed to the NGOs to be service-oriented.

Altogether 30 items for physically challenged persons five tricycles, eight wheelchairs, 12 bearing aid, and two walking sticks were distributed. In his speech, former District and Session Judge RP Handa emphasized the need to conduct public awareness meetings especially those that deal with the rights of the people.

Source: Kit distributed among physically challenged. The Sentinel, Guwahati, 12 October 2005.

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The BPO sector and persons with disability

More and more companies are recognizing the potential of people with disabilities. This includes companies from the ITES sector. While no official figure is available, estimates show that the number of 'challenged' or differently abled people working in the BPO-ITES sector could be about 2,000.

In fact, some BPOs have been every proactive in recruiting such people and have tied up with NGOs working with them to recruit and train them. Hinduja TMT (HTMT) is one of them. It tied up with Samarthanam, an NGO working for the visually impaired and further plans to tie up with two more NGOs, and make a structured recruitment plan for hiring people with disabilities. While the plans are to start with a small module of about 10 people are to make it a bigger initiative.

HTMT vice-president and head, HR, Prosenjit Ganguly says: "It's very relevant as far as the ITES sector us concerned. "I m amazed at the skills some of these people have. They need our encouragement and support, certainly not our empathy. They're good at spoken English, they write very well and some of them have also been taught software-handling skills.

Some are also academically very well placed. They have the ability and inclination to work extra hard and tat males all the difference." Bangalore-based Transwork BPO (an Aditya Birla Group Company) is another such company. It has 25 employees who are orthopedically challenged. "We can employ these people because operations, being a speech and hearing sensitive desk job, do not require a lot if perambulatory movements," president, HR, KP Nair.

The company is associated with an NGO Enable India. Among the employee at Transworks is Fayaz Pasha who works in the HR department. Being visually impaired, he uses a voice-based software programme to conduct group discussions and voice listening and testing schedules. The company also plans to employ 'challenged' people in areas of management and information systems (MIS), call listening and quality analysis.

Another Bangalore-based BPO, 24/7 customers, employs as many as 50 physically challenged individuals. Among them are visually challenged people who work as voice and accent trainers. It too, has tied up with Enable India.

Delhi-based Flextronics Software Systems too has a number of physically disabled people. "After an employee met with an accident, we had to make arrangements to accommodate him. We make a number of changes in the building for him.

But since then the company has continued with the process of making the necessary changes within the building to accommodate the physically challenged. We have hired many such people since then and plan to recruit even more," says a manager of the company.

Datamatics Technologies Ltd. (DTL), a non-voice based BPO, has gone a step further. As much as 10 percent of the company's total workforce of 1,450 employees are physically challenged and work from home. DTL has also tied up with the National Society for Equal Opportunities for the Handicapped (NASEOH) to recruit physically challenged persons.

Source: Reaching out to challenged people. Financial Express, Mumbai, 16 October 2005.

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Computer power

Never mind if he is visually impaired, 21-year-old, Ashwani Gupta is a master of HTML and DHTML languages and cam handle a number of computer software with ease.

A student of the All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB), Ashwani lost more than 90 percent vision when he was in Class 8. But his urge to learn computers prompted him to work harder and he gained expertise with the screen reading software, JAWS (Job Access With Speech).

Ashwani revealed, "The darkness around me was depressing and I never hoped to get out of it. But my father encouraged me to continue my students."

Explaining the method of teaching and usage if the software, Ashok Kumar, instructor at AICB computer, informed that JAWS is unique software, which translates all the commands into an audio format.

After a 20-day keyboard orientation programme, the students are taught various commands, which can help them, surf the net. "The software is user-friendly but the students usually find it tough to pick up the English key-board.

However, we try to clear their concepts clear though Braille," explained Ashok. Ashwani along with 200 other visually impaired children from Bhartiya Netraheen Kalyan Parishad (BNKP) participated in the celebrations of the International White Cane Day, held at Hansraj Public School.

The children were also given white canes to mark the occasion, which was supported by the Amway Opportunity Foundation.

Source: Visually challenged get computer literate. Asian Age, New Delhi. 19 October 2005.

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Decentralization of GIA to NGOs

The Centre announced the decentralization of grants being given to Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) for blindness control programmes.

In fact, the power to provide grants to NGOs working in the field of ophthalmology has been passed onto the States under the 'National Programme for Control of Blindness', Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said on the occasion of the World Sight Day-2005.

Since the States are closed to the voluntary organizations working in the field, they can spot genuine and dedicated NGOs to join hands and achieve the goals of national blindness control programme.

The Governmental will continue to support all its hospital as well as voluntary organizations for developing the eye-care infrastructure, so that modern methods of treatment reach the poor and the needy, Dr. Ramadoss said.

In a message, he also said that the Government and the NGOs have jointly prepared a blue print on vision 2020 for India. This is the right time to execute the plan of action by all concerned to achieve the aim.

However, for a country like India, simple community based projects is required in every nook and corner of the country, to build infrastructure for providing better eye-care services. Since this would require a large base, the Government had already decentralized the implementation of the programme constituting States and District Blindness Control Societies throughout the country.

Later, addressing a function in Hyderabad this afternoon to make the World Sight Day-2005, Dr. Ramadoss said, during the year 2004-2005, nearly 45 lakh cataract surgeries were performed in the country, out of which 88 percent were intra-ocular lens implantations.

This indicates the success of the national programme for the control of blindness and by the year 2020, the prevalence of blindness would be reduced to 0.3 percent, he said. By 2007, it is proposed to reduce its prevalence to 0.8 per cent. As per a survey in 2002-02, the prevalence of blindness in the country was estimated at 1.1 percent of the population.

The minister said the Government is equally concerned about visual impairment and blindness especially among the children and youth. He appealed to all the State Government to lay special emphasis on the prevention and treatment of childhood blindness. Involvement of Panchayat in such programmes would be highly useful, he said, citing the example of the campaign to eradicate polio.

Sources: Grants for NGOs decentralized. National Herald, New Delhi, 14 October 2005. States given green light to fund NGOs. The Pioneer, New Delhi. 14 October 2005.

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Disabled-friendly elections a distant dream

The National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled people (NCPEDP) has expressed disappointment over the Election Commission's indifferent attitude' towards its plea for making assembly elections in Bihar disabled-friendly.

In a statement, the head of NCPEDP, Javed Abidi, said that despite their letter to the Election Commissioner on September 2005 requesting that the elections in Bihar be made disabled-friendly, nothing had been done.

Source: Disabled allege EC indifference. The National Herald, New Delhi,18 October 2005.

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