Indonesian social network striving to help disabled people get employment
MODERN technology not only helps people with disabilities go about their daily activities, but it may also help them find employment and work effectively.
An Indonesian employmentoriented social network dedicated to people with disabilities, kerjabilitas.com, has attracted some 9,000 members since it was founded in 2014.
More than 96 per cent of the people with disabilities registered with the network are seeking employment.
The network’s cofounder and chief technology officer, Tety Sianipar, said around 350 of the registered members were employed in formal jobs.
“The number of registered people increases by about 1,000 per year, but the number of job placements at companies seems to have been growing at a slower pace over the past years,” Tety acknowledged.
Tety said that, based on the 2015 population survey, the number of Indonesians with disabilities was around 21.9 million, or 8.56 per cent of the country’s population. More than 11.2 million of them were of working age between 15 and 64 years.
Citing Manpower Ministr y data, she added t hat about 414,000 people wit h disabilit ies were unemployed as of last year.
“This data does not guarantee that those employed have formal jobs, because some of them run small, independent businesses with unstable and very low income,” she said.
Kerjabilitas.com has teamed up with 2,000 companies from various industries. The majority of the employed disabled people work for small or medsized enterprises, while others work for larger private firms or state-owned companies.
Most of the partner companies operate in the banking, retail and hospitality sectors, while most of the employed disabled people work as customer service agents, graphic designers or copywriters.
Tety also said that, out of the companies partnering with kerjabilitas.com, Bank Mandiri was one of the few that had been actively participating in promoting employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
The head of Bank Mandiri’s contact center, Asih Samihadi, said his office employed 23 people with disabilities, equal to 6.5 per cent of the 350 people working there.
“We are sure that the number will increase in the years to come. We also hope that more companies will be motivated to employ disabled people,” he said.
Asih said he noticed that some companies were unwilling to employ disabled people because of the fear of poor performance, while others were simply not ready to provide additional facilities in their offices.
In response to that, the senior program officer at health a n d re h a b i l i t a t i o n NGO Christoffel-Blindenmission (CBM), Jaka Ahmad, who was visually impaired himself, said he had proven wrong the view that disabled people could not work properly.
“One goal CBM is holding onto tight is to make sure disabled people are not the object but the subject of development.We have witnessed the capability of disabled people to work even in important positions,” he said.
Additionally, an intern at the Transportation Ministry, Arya Yoga Rudhita, said adding facilities for disabled people like himself, who was paralysed by an accident, should not be a problem for companies that had a strong vision on inclusivity.
“The ministry has never had disabled workers before me. As I arrived, they started to install facilities at the entrance, the toilets and parking lot to accommodate physically disabled people like me,” he said.
Tety added that more companies should be willing to increase their capacity to employ people with disabilities and to comply with Law No 8/2016 on people with disabilities.
“The law requires that private companies allocate 1 per cent of their work placement to disabled people, and state-owned enterprises two per cent,” she said. “But many companies have yet to comply with that.”
“The Transportation Ministry also needs to ensure the availability of disability-friendly transportation facilities that can make it easier for disabled people to get to work,” she said.
However, Tety acknowledged that disabled people themselves should be competent and improve their expertise in line with the needs of companies.
“We hold regular training courses on how to write good CVs and job application letters as well as on how to present oneself in an interview,” she said.
“We don’t want disabled people to be accepted just because they are begging for generosity but purely because they are capable to do the job,” she added.