"It's all about leveraging every talent in an environment for profit. Inclusivity should not mean charity." Corporate biggies like SAP, Wipro and Goldman Sachs
discussed the practices of inclusion in their own companies and how
they can be emulated elsewhere, on the second day of the India Inclusion
Summit 2013.
"We've been doing a lot of things to employ differently-abled people in our company in many roles, but that is not how inclusion is felt. When able employees and the hearing impaired speak together in sign language inside and outside the campus, it means we've reached the aim of inclusion," said Issac George, head of human resources, Wipro.
He said corporates can talk about how to show the right attitude towards the disabled in the company, but that is not enough. "Some of us are working on a project: to have a dictionary on a sign language for words or jargon frequently used in the IT industry," said George.
A plethora of eminent people, who have directly or indirectly been affected by some form of disability or disabled people, discussed how to look at being differently-abled as a celebration of life, and societal attitude - which should have changed by now, and why it isn't changing.
LEARNING TO ACCEPT
"When I was a child in the 70s in a small town in Tamil Nadu, I had friends and neighbours who had disabilities, but I never treated them differently. I lived with them the way they were. It is now, when I've grown up, that I see the real world is far different and the way people use phrases like 'these people' or 'them' is not just derogatory but shows how we've not yet learnt to accept," said eminent writer Anita Nair.
Besides soaking up inspiration at the summit, she said that as a writer, she would like to focus on ability and not disability, through her job of story-telling.
Poonam Natarajan, chairperson of National Trust put it aptly, "Inclusion is not a part-time job. It's a way of life. We don't have to go on describing the difference. There are 7 million disabled adults in India but only 1% is employed. But I know several such groups of people and individuals who have immense potential and are silently contributing to the economy. Inclusion can bring them to the fore and inspire many other disabled youth to unlock their potential."
Source : TOI , 1st Dec 2013
"We've been doing a lot of things to employ differently-abled people in our company in many roles, but that is not how inclusion is felt. When able employees and the hearing impaired speak together in sign language inside and outside the campus, it means we've reached the aim of inclusion," said Issac George, head of human resources, Wipro.
He said corporates can talk about how to show the right attitude towards the disabled in the company, but that is not enough. "Some of us are working on a project: to have a dictionary on a sign language for words or jargon frequently used in the IT industry," said George.
A plethora of eminent people, who have directly or indirectly been affected by some form of disability or disabled people, discussed how to look at being differently-abled as a celebration of life, and societal attitude - which should have changed by now, and why it isn't changing.
LEARNING TO ACCEPT
"When I was a child in the 70s in a small town in Tamil Nadu, I had friends and neighbours who had disabilities, but I never treated them differently. I lived with them the way they were. It is now, when I've grown up, that I see the real world is far different and the way people use phrases like 'these people' or 'them' is not just derogatory but shows how we've not yet learnt to accept," said eminent writer Anita Nair.
Besides soaking up inspiration at the summit, she said that as a writer, she would like to focus on ability and not disability, through her job of story-telling.
Poonam Natarajan, chairperson of National Trust put it aptly, "Inclusion is not a part-time job. It's a way of life. We don't have to go on describing the difference. There are 7 million disabled adults in India but only 1% is employed. But I know several such groups of people and individuals who have immense potential and are silently contributing to the economy. Inclusion can bring them to the fore and inspire many other disabled youth to unlock their potential."
Source : TOI , 1st Dec 2013
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