8 December, 2023: The DEPwD – Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, The EDII – The Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India and The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India organized a round table meet recently. This was organized for corporates to “Support, Activate and Build Assured Livelihoods (SABL) for persons with Disabilities (PwDs) under CSR Actions.”
This event was attended by Dr. Sunil Shukla, Director General, EDII, Shri Saumya Chaudhuri, CGM, IDBI Bank Ltd, Shri Jagannath Sahoo, President, SBI Foundation; Dr. Vineet Rana, General Manager, National Handicapped Finance Development Corporation, DePwD, Government of India; Shri Rajendra Nimbalkar, IAS, Managing Director, Maharashtra Small Scale Industries Development Corporation Ltd., Mumbai; Director, Department of Projects (Corporate) at EDII – Dr. Raman Gujral, along with senior officials from DePwD and CSR leaders from leading corporates.
The agenda focused on sensitizing society at large and instituting interventions and measures that ensured the establishment of 3,000 new enterprises, PwDs, which included 1,500 technology driven and 1,500 general enterprises.
The brainstorming at the roundtable meeting centered on creating a better world for PwDs by setting up an effective synergy between corporates, governments and institutions. Specific objectives related to the empowerment of PwDs through sustainable enterprise creation were deliberated upon. The creation of a set of best practices, with relevance to infrastructure, perception, security, environment, and other facilities to promote their complete inclusion in society, contemplating ways to ensure an integrative working environment, concluding on an inventory of business opportunities that the PwDs could avail to create their own enterprises, align the project with SDG’s ( sustainable development goals) and break the professional segregation in society of relegating the disabled PwDs to lower paying jobs were all focal points at the meet.
The participating corporates identified some primary areas of cooperation based on the discussions and takeaways. The goal of creating 3000 PwD led enterprises was based on identifying some activities. A few of which were an awareness campaign to ensure community integration of PwDs, sourcing business opportunities for PwDs, immersive life skills for adolescents with disabilities and so on.
The pivotal role of NHFDC in empowering persons with disabilities (PwDs) was emphasized by Dr Vineet Rana.
The collaborative efforts of SBI Foundation with EDII was highlighted by Shri Jagannath Sahoo.
The role of IDBI Bank’s CSR wing, was mentioned by Shri Saumya Chaudhuri
The features of newly launched DePwD PM Daksh portal for skilling and employment of Divyangjan were explained during a video screening.
Dr. Sunil Shukla and Dr. Raman Gujral also shared their opinions and insights.
TAGS:
#PwDs#EDII#DePwD#livelihoodopportunitiesforpersonswithdisabilities #corporatessecuringlivelihood#personswithdisabilities #empowerementofpersonswithdisabilities
