Providing vocational training and creating jobs for persons withdisabilities (PWDs) requires collaboration among authorities at alllevels and the whole society, Deputy Minister of Labour, Invalids andSocial 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.
In2013, about 80,000 PWDs gained vocational skills in jobs suitable fortheir health, such as spa servces, animal husbandry, mushroomcultivation, carpentry, and making clothes and bamboo products.
Overthe period, chapters of the Vietnam Association for the Support ofDisabled People and Orphans gave training to 2,900 PWDs and providedjobs 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.
Nearly800 PWDs in Hung Yen, Ha Nam, Hai Duong, Binh Thuan and Lam Dongprovinces and the capital Hanoi benefited from a Spanish RedCross-funded project giving socio-economic integration and employmentsupport to the target group.
Meanwhile, many organisations andbusinesses have employed PWDs. For example, the Customs Sub-Departmentof District 1 in Ho Chi Minh City has recruited more than 40 disabledstaff. Meanwhile, some 30 others have found jobs at the Vietnam Protectsafety equipment company, which has built PWD-friendly production lines.
Accordingto MOLISA’s General Department of Vocational Training, around 1.5million 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 PWDsto afford training fees.
Additionally, they are mostly equippedwith handicraft-making skills, while those with more advanced capacitystruggle to find workplaces with suitable facilities.
Aprejudiced attitude of businesses towards the group is also deemed as abarrier to PWDs’ access to vocational training, Dung added.
Chairmanof the Vietnam Association for the Support of Disabled People andOrphans Nguyen Dinh Lieu said that by now society should know well thatPWDs are as capable of working as well as able-bodied people can.
Headded that providing the group with professional skills is an importantmission for managerial agencies and social organisations.-VNA