FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

Opportunities open up for people with disabilities

Opportunities open up for people with disabilities

More than 20,000 people have registered to exercise their vocational rights as per the Empowerment of Persons With Disabilities Act 2007’s Section 35, according to Department of Employment (DOE) director-general Anurak Tossarat.

About 96 per cent of the 21,868 registered disabled persons had received vocational opportunities so far, he said. The DOE itself hired 90 people, two as civil servants, one as a state employee and 87 others through sub-contractors at its central and regional offices, he added.
Anurak said the DOE had supported disabled people in seven activities;
1. Having companies give concessions such as TV and radio time, or space for farming, or allowing disabled entrepreneurs to install automatic beverage dispensers at offices or sell company-branded shirts.
2. Having companies arrange space for goods and services provided by disabled persons. For example, a hospital may provide a place for people to sell flowers or a company may allow a disable person to operate a car-park.
3. Having companies hire subcontractors that employ disabled persons. For example, a firm may hire blind people to massage employees or hire disabled persons to clean offices.
4. Providing vocational training in areas such as glyptography (jewellery cutting), basic computer repair and air-conditioning repair.
5. Encouraging companies to provide facilities and equipment to accommodate disabled persons, such as elevators and tactile indicators for vision-impaired people.
6. Having companies hire sign-language interpreters.
7. Providing other aid, such as granting funds for disabled persons’ groups to make and sell brooms, promoting people’s purchase of New Year gifts made by disabled persons, and building shops or farming centres in communities for vocational use by disabled people.
The DOE also followed up the guidelines that both parties in contracts drawn up under Section 35 were willing and that there was no duplication of the disabled person’s name on different contracts, Anurak said.
Officials would also regularly check with the disabled person or their guardian if they had received the vocational opportunities they had registered for.
For more information on the programme, call the DOE hotline, 1694.

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