My aunt’s left side was completely paralyzed due to a polio attack. One of my best friends in my school right from class 2 is physically disabled. My aunt (mom’s sister) is hard of hearing due to an accident in childhood. My friend’s cousin had cerebral palsy. So I grew up with disabled people around me and I have a lot of empathy for them. Incidentally none of them got employment. But all this was just there somewhere in my mind. I did not consciously think about them not getting jobs.
Then last December, I met a very smart kid. Biswa had completed Mechanical Engineering and was looking for a job. He is intelligent, can grasp things quickly, is very passionate and hard working. But he could not get a job. He is so lively, cheerful, full of life and hope and dreams about the future, like any kid would be, just out of college with an engineering degree in hand. He drives a car, bike, goes para sailing, snorkelling, loves photography. Just like any of us. He wants to earn a lot of money, travel the world, buy a house and a fancy car. Just like any of us. The only thing keeping him from his ambitions is his disability – he is hearing impaired. And that’s no fault of his. He was born that way.
His dream car that he will buy some day and take me for a ride in!
So that’s what got me thinking. I wanted to do something for him. I wanted to get him a job, a fair chance at earning a livelihood and the dignity of being self-reliant and not being dependent on people, sometimes even strangers. So why do people not give the hearing impaired a job? It’s because they are not sure these people can perform on par with the so called “normal” people. That’s when I got introduced to the NGO “Enable India” who is doing a fantastic job in training people with all kinds of disabilities (hearing / visual / speech impaired, physical disability, autism, cerebral palsy) and makes them employable. They are also tied up with corporates for placement of these candidates. So I recommended Biswa to undergo a training with them. Once the training got over, they arranged for interview and he got placed at EMC! His joy knew no bounds! He was finally employed and now he can slowly but surely go after all his dreams, goals and ambitions.
His pet dog Jim whom he adores and who understands his language well!
And I thought, if he could do it, anyone can. I then went to Enable India and met people there with all kinds of disabilities – a completely visually impaired person working on a computer as good as I do, learnt about a person with cerebral palsy working as a senior programmer at an IT firm, a visually impaired and hard of hearing person working as an analyst, a hearing impaired person working as software tester. And all of these people were great performers. Their managers were extremely happy with their work and performance.
That’s when I decided that I am going to get 50 PWD (Persons with Disability) a job. Yes that sounds very ambitious. But I am not one who settles for less. I like to take on giant sized challenges. And I have a huge network of friends, colleagues, acquaintances and well-wishers to support me. Together we will make it happen!!
poorvismusings 
I am good
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