US Consul General Awards Training Certificates to Disabled Youth

Hyderabad|India|January'2011: US. Consul General Katherine Dhanani distributed certificates to disabled youth at the Centre for Persons with Disability Livelihoods (CPDL) in Jubilee Hills, January 18, 2011. During her visit, the Consul General interacted with disabled youth trained and placed in jobs by CPDL.

Speaking on the occasion Ms. Dhanani applauded the tenacity of the youth for not only conquering the limitations of their disabilities, but also battling naysayers, traditions of culture and society and most importantly overcoming their own doubts and inhibitions. “Any company should be proud to employ one of these course graduates. From what I’ve seen, I would recommend any one of them as an exemplary employee.”

CPDL was set up by Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), rural development department, government of Andhra Pradesh , and Wadhwani Foundation (WF), to train and link persons with disability to jobs. A Public Private Partnership (PPP) it aims to train 1,000 persons with disabilities by March 2011.

Until this date, CPDL has trained 100 youth with 40-70 per cent disability and placed them in companies such as HD Finance, Tata Teleservices, TBSS, KFC and Spencers among others with salaries ranging between Rs.56,000 and Rs.1,10,000 per annum.

About 700 youth are currently training in various sectors such as IT, ITES, BPO, textiles, hospitality and manufacturing in 14 training centers in Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, Chittoor, Nalgonda and Warangal.

This job-linked program for the disabled is first of its kind in the country.