Members, how many of us here are dealing with article 27 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities? (This discusses the employer’s responsibilities to employ and support people with disabilities.) Maybe they can share their thoughts with us. And please, members with any personal experience around this subject are highly recommended.
I run a business in Wales and employ disabled people. Being disabled myself makes our working environment successful because we all understand and work creatively around our capabilities. The problem is that most commercial businesses only understand profitability in the short term and see disabled people as an overhead to support instead of co-producing with their Human Resources and disabled employees to create the necessary support to fully contribute.
To pick up on the debate around the employability of persons with disabilities, this does not stop with the question of "how many tables a person can make in a week?" This question, by itself, is incomplete when discussing the recruitment of any person, disabled or not. A further question in the discussion is surely, "What does this person with disability bring to the organisation or product through their experiences, ideas, and expertise?"
What opportunities and benefits can we highlight in recruiting persons with disabilities?
I personally am driven by passion to involve myself in everything my business is involved in. This helps motivate the people around me. We all work to our personal capabilities, physically, mentally and skills.
About employment. Whether it is government, private or organisations, what I have experienced in Kenya is that most of the mentioned bodies, do employ disabled persons out of obligation set by the policy, but mostly, they don't do it due to qualifications or one's inputs. I have seen abled persons taking total advantage of the disabled persons in their offices. Example: if disabled person is in the office & cannot move much, the partner (abled) may even leave the office, go his/her own way, do his personal errands during working hours, while the disabled partner is sat for a long time & working alone for long hours. Usually bosses know this, but they do nothing. Yes, it's good to be employed but how is the treatment of disabled persons, within the entire body that has employed us?? Are we seen as potential tools that benefit the society or as office scape ways for those who just report, hung their coats & leave to attend to their businesses, if a disabled person is full time in office? Those who genuinely respect disabled because of their qualification’s, performances, potentiality or their dignity are very few due to that culture of some that believes that disabled have nothing good to offer.