(Photograph © Payal Rajpal)
EnAble India is an AIF partner working with the Market Aligned Skills Training (MAST) Program to provide career training and placement services to youth with physical disabilities. EnAble acts to provides employment services, continuing education, counseling and support services, as well as career training to people with disabilities, preparing them to join the mainstream workforce as competent and confident employees.
EnAble trainee Deepa Narasimhan is a self-trained graphic and web designer who has designed presentations and websites for NGOs, consultancy firms, and finance and IT companies. At EMC2, she works as a web designer, managing the intranet portal and designing promotional materials. Deepa has Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a neuromuscular disease resulting in extreme weakness of muscles. She has been confined to a wheelchair since the age of ten, and only her wrists and fingers remain functional through physiotherapy. Because of limited mobility in her hands, she uses an onscreen keyboard that can be operated using a mouse. EMC2 has provided her with a helper, and has ramp-accessible buildings and rest rooms.
“Deepa is the perfect role model for persons with disability. Her confidence in her abilities, creative mind, excellent communication skills and pleasant disposition have been key in helping her secure a job in a reputed multinational organization and gain financial independence,” says Shanti, Founder and Managing Trustee of EnAble India. Deepa wishes to contribute to building a disabled-friendly society in India. She has been studying policies that exist in other countries for greater inclusion of disabled people, and she wishes to help build a similar society in India.
EnAble India has conducted 97 faculty trainings about the inclusion of persons with disabilities in MAST centers. This year, EnAble has trained 132 persons with disabilities in career oriented skills, and placed 65 of them in formal sector jobs, empowering them with financial independence and the confidence in their abilities.
