People with disabilities hope for better deal
HA NOI — Physically challenged people in Viet Nam have set up their own business association to protect their rights and push for the Government and business community to help provide vocational training and jobs for them.
The Viet Nam Association of Business Enterprises of Persons with Disabilities held its first congress in Ha Noi last Thursday, with 130 delegates representing more than 400 businesses of the disabled.
Delegates at the congress discussed problems such as priority policies for disabled people’s businesses, and the conditions for them to establish enterprises.
The director of the office of the National Co-ordinating Council on Disability in Viet Nam (NCCD), Nghiem Xuan Tue, said each nation in the region has adopted a seven-point programme to help disabled people, in response to the second Decade for the Disabled of the Asia-Pacific Region (2003-12) – an initiative of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
Viet Nam has decided to implement all seven points, and add another to raise people’s awareness in assisting the Physically challenged, Tue said.
He said his office has also compiled detailed action plans for 2004-05 with the hope of bringing benefits to the disabled.
Tue said the disabled are able to do many things, and have abilities and enthusiasm that many normal people do not have.
But there are not many job opportunities for them because they have limited vocational skills, they may be too shy to contact employers, and employers are often reluctant to employ disabled people.
One of the aims of the UNESCAP initiative is to create favourable conditions for the disabled to find suitable jobs.
On April 14, 2003, the Minister of the Interior agreed to the establishment of the association, aiming to help the disabled access the labour market.
Under the terms of the 2004-05 plan, the office will co-ordinate with the Department of Labour and Employment under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to work out ways to improve job opportunities and employment services for the disabled.
This plan has five targets to help raise the socio-economic position of people with disabilities, through job creation and through employment services such as job promotion and training.
The first is for the ministry to ask the Government to adjust some articles of Decree 81/CP for disabled labourers, and related policies.
The second is to raise the community’s awareness about the working abilities of the disabled and the policies and laws which protect them.
The third is to boost employment services for the disabled.
More investment will be earmarked to upgrade job promotion centres for the disabled.
The skills of staff at the centres will be improved so that they are better able to help the disabled find a suitable job.
The fourth target is to help the disabled gain access to the National Job Promotion Fund.
And the final one is to work out a vocational training and job creation programme for the disabled, based on firms’ work force needs.
Tue said his office will co-operate with job promotion centres to experimentally implement this programme, at a total cost of nearly VND5 billion (US$323,000).
He said physically challenged women, who account for a large proportion of the more than 5 million disabled people, must cope with many more difficulties than men in job hunting.
He said the NCCD paid a lot of attention to helping disabled women, and with the Women’s Union, it has set up an action plan for disabled women for the next two years.
Following this plan, women will take part in training courses, and will receive information on sexual equality, reproductive health and the management of small firms.
They will receive assistance with vocational training and with finding a job, and two job training centres belonging to women’s unions – in HCM City and the northern province of Quang Ninh – will be upgraded to meet local demands for vocational training.
It is expected that the two centres will create jobs for between 100 and 200 disabled women in the next two years.
This model will be also developed nation-wide.
Tue said information and telecommunication technology was a field well suited to the disabled, as it required little mobility or use of muscles, and also fitted with the global trend towards greater use of such technology.
Viet Nam now has more than 5 million disabled people. Nearly 70 per cent are of working age, but only 3.3 per cent of them have a stable job. More than 400 businesses nation-wide now employ 20,000 disabled people. — VNS
