Providing vocational training and creating jobs for persons with disabilities (PWDs) requires collaboration among authorities at all levels and the whole society, Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) Nguyen Trong Dam has noted.
At present, there are some 6.7 million disabled people in Vietnam, 60 percent of who are of working age.
In 2013, about 80,000 PWDs gained vocational skills in jobs suitable for their health, such as spa servces, animal husbandry, mushroom cultivation, carpentry, and making clothes and bamboo products.
Over the period, chapters of the Vietnam Association for the Support of Disabled People and Orphans gave training to 2,900 PWDs and provided jobs for 1,100 of them.
The association opened 33 training courses in 16 provinces such as southern Binh Duong, central Ha Tinh and northern Bac Giang.
Nearly 800 PWDs in Hung Yen, Ha Nam, Hai Duong, Binh Thuan and Lam Dong provinces and the capital Hanoi benefited from a Spanish Red Cross-funded project giving socio-economic integration and employment support to the target group.
Meanwhile, many organisations and businesses have employed PWDs. For example, the Customs Sub-Department of District 1 in Ho Chi Minh City has recruited more than 40 disabled staff. Meanwhile, some 30 others have found jobs at the Vietnam Protect safety equipment company, which has built PWD-friendly production lines.
According to MOLISA’s General Department of Vocational Training, around 1.5 million people in Vietnam are taught with vocational skills every year, yet only 6,000 of them PWDs (0.4 percent).
Tran Quang Dung, Chairman of the Association of PWDs in the northern province of Ha Nam, said disadvantaged circumstances and poor capacity make it hard for PWDs to afford training fees.
Additionally, they are mostly equipped with handicraft-making skills, while those with more advanced capacity struggle to find workplaces with suitable facilities.
A prejudiced attitude of businesses towards the group is also deemed as a barrier to PWDs’ access to vocational training, Dung added.
Chairman of the Vietnam Association for the Support of Disabled People and Orphans Nguyen Dinh Lieu said that by now society should know well that PWDs are as capable of working as well as able-bodied people can.
He added that providing the group with professional skills is an important mission for managerial agencies and social organisations.-VNA
Widespread effort needed to provide jobs for disabled workers Related image(s)
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