Boubacar, 33, had polio as a child and now needs crutches to walk. Despite having two degrees, he struggled to find work due to the discrimination he faced because of his disability. His story is one of many. | © E FITTE DUVAL / HI
A new white paper published today provides practical information and lessons learned on how multinational corporations can fully include people with disabilities into the workplace.
Boubacar, 33, had polio as a child and now needs crutches to walk. Despite having two degrees, he struggled to find work due to the discrimination he faced because of his disability. His story is one of many. | © E FITTE DUVAL / HI
Good for Business: Promoting Partnerships to Employ People with Disabilities offers six steps for companies to follow to ensure they're ready to welcome more colleagues with disability.
Written in conjunction with Leonard Cheshire Disability (LCD), the paper explains how partnerships between businesses and NGOs are becoming more frequent as multinational companies stretch into new, low- and middle-income markets. Together, they're collaborating to successfully recruit, hire and retain people with disabilities.
The authors, Hervé Bernard of Handicap International and Tiziana Oliva of Leonard Cheshire, note how their teams are increasingly filling a gap for companies who want to be inclusive, but don't know where to start. They write, "between us, working in dozens of countries, we hear a common tale: highly skilled people with disabilities who are being overlooked for no other reason than stigma or misunderstanding. And at the same time, we see multinationals demanding those very skills they harbor, but not tapping this pool of talent effectively."
Increased access to meaningful, waged labour helps to chip away at the unfortunate statistic that less than 20% of people with disabilities are working worldwide. Case studies from HI and LCD projects in North Africa, West Africa, South Asia, East Asia and South Africa are highlighted.
The new paper builds off of information provided in HI’s 2016 white paper, Situation of Wage Employment of People with Disabilities: Ten Developing Countries in Focus.
Good for Business will be shared at the second annual Harkin Summit on International Disability Employment. This year's Summit gathers 255 people from 40 countries to discuss ways to accelerate paths to employment for people with disabilities.
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