Projects : JEEVIKA - A FICCI-SEDF and AADI partnership project for enhancing livelihood opportunities for persons with disabilities

Garment Industry Experience

FICCI-SEDF in partnership with AADI has set up JEEVIKA project for enhancing employment and livelihood opportunities for Persons with Disabilities. JEEVIKA (supported by SBI) facilitates livelihood opportunities of Persons with Disabilities by:

1. Promoting equal opportunity and inclusive work culture.
2. Skill enhancement and placement services for Persons with Disabilities.
3. Establishing linkages for entrepreneurship development.

Under the Jeevika Project, the first 3 batches of 90 trainees (Persons with Disabilities) received training at the ATDC (Apparel Training & Design Centre), Okhla and NOIDA. Apparel Training and Design Centre a premier training institute, which is sponsored by Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), Ministry of Textiles, has a mission to upgrade the technical skills of workers employed in the Garment Industry. ATDC announced ' Tailor's Course ' a short term subsidized professional training course to facilitate immediate requirement of the garment industry. The trainees, persons with disability were selected for the training from all over Delhi. This was an especially designed module keeping in view the needs of the Persons with Disabilities. NTPC, Badarpur Project, a corporate giant supported the process by providing two buses to ply the trainees to the training institute. The transport facilitated first time exposure to a training environment and boosted self-esteem and 100% attendance for the training. After the initial training the export houses started absorbing them. About 35 trainees (as on August 2006) got placed and the rest are in the process. The success of this endeavour and the fact that there is a vast job market in the garment sector, has given a lot of hope to the project. ATDCs in other cities like Bangalore,Mumbai and Gurgaon have agreed to provide training to the persons with Disabilities for gainful livelihood opportunities. Also, a large number of export houses have shown interest in recruiting the trainees with disabilities.

On 26th May 2006, FICCI-SEDF and AADI invited all the stakeholders including training institutes, garment export houses, NGOs and persons with Disabilities to share the experience of an exciting journey in this endeavour. These sharings highlighted the process and the learnings gained from this initiative.

This event saw a partnership of NGO, industry/corporates and training institutes to come together to build potential skills for successful employments for persons with disabilities.

Based on the success in the garment industry similar initiatives are in pipeline for training and placement of Persons with disabilities in the retail, IT, and hospitality sectors.