The workshop would list challenges faced by the visually-challenged and suggest ways in which such people could be included within the job market.
“Primarily, I generate reports and work on Excel spreadsheets,” said Suprita Gupta, a visually-challenged employee with a multinational firm. She was recently awarded the ‘best performer in the team’ award by her employers.
Sharing her experiences, she said, “Initially, they (the employer) felt that I may not be able to generate reports or work on excel sheets because I am visually challenged. However, within six months, I was promoted. Now, they come to me if there is any problem with the reports.”
She was participating in the workshop on ‘Employability and Dignified Livelihood’ organised by SightSavers, the National Association for the Blind, Karnataka, and Enable India, an NGO.
The seminar would conclude with a national level meeting scheduled to be held around the time when the International Day of the Disabled is observed on December 3.
The aim of the two-day workshop is to list challenges faced by those with visual disability, and suggest ways in which people with such disability could be seamlessly included within the job market. If there were policy changes or measures that industry could adopt to make the entry of the visually challenged into the workforce easier, these too would be discussed at length.
“At the conclusion of the workshop, we will collate all the suggestions and hopefully, it would result in an action-taken document. If there is success in this area in any one state, there are ways in which other states could follow the lead,” said Sabitra Kundu, programme manager, SightSavers.
Citing an example from Andhra Pradesh, Kundu said, “A government order has been issued by the state government of Andhra Pradesh making it mandatory for disabled people to be made part of the rural employment guarantee scheme, which offers 100 days of employment. This is something that could be done in all states,” Kundu said.
While there are no India-specific statistics that reveal the extent of visual disability in the country, Kundu said that globally, there were 285 million blind people. Of these, 236 million have low vision, while 39 million are completely blind.
The rate of blindness in India is broadly estimated at nearly 1.5 % of the total population, Kundu said, adding that typically, nearly four times that figure would suffer milder forms of visual impairment.
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