This Bengaluru-Based NGO Is Empowering Women With Disabilities By Providing Accommodation, Employment

People with disabilities face a broad set of issues for their survival. Ranging from educational challenges to lack of inclusive accommodation facilities, differently-abled people have been dealing with many hardships in leading their regular lives. Moreover, the issues are magnified when it comes to women with disabilities. Since women face discrimination in terms of education and job facilities, the condition of women with disabilities in these aspects gets worse.

Mitra Jyothi is a Bangalore-based NGO working for people with disabilities in general and the visually impaired in particular. Under the various initiatives, they have a 'Centre for Women Empowerment with Disabilities'. Set up in the silicon valley of India, Bangalore, this centre is a state-of-the-art, disabled-friendly, safe and secure accommodation facility for working women with disabilities. In collaboration with The Hans Foundation, the hostel facility was inaugurated in January 2016. The centre is designed to accommodate 50 women working in Bangalore and need a hostel facility.

Ms Madhu Singhal is the Founder and Managing Trustee of Mitra Jyothi. She attended school and studied through Braille. Facing challenges and overcoming them, Singhal wished to use her life experiences to do something significant for the blind and hence, enrich the lives of others with her learnings about life. Her service to society through Mitra Jyothi has been recognised worldwide as she has been awarded multiple times.

About Mitra Jyothi And Its Goals

The NGO believes that women with disabilities are subject to more discrimination not just related to the outside world but also within their families. The girl child is often discouraged from pursuing education and job roles. Moreover, concerns like girls' safety in sustaining a life in a new city also pose challenges. Hence, women often miss out on opportunities that could enhance their life due to a lack of safe environments.

The NGO aims at providing a safe shelter for working or studying women with physical or visual disabilities. It is available at nominal and subsidised costs to reduce the financial burden on working women. Through this initiative, Mitra Jyothi encourages rural women to take courses in mainstream education colleges and universities instead of distance education. Usually, women with disabilities settle for online distance education because of a lack of inclusive accommodation facilities. At times, when such facilities are available, they are not affordable for them.

Through this service, the NGO broadens the horizon of employment for women with disabilities as they are exposed to urban job culture. It, in turn, helps improve their employability skills to meet other job requirements and exposure to a competitive world. As a result, women see themselves leading independent lives surpassing all sorts of challenges.

In addition, Mitra Jyothi has a dedicated placement cell that provides job placement to many people with disabilities. Through this cell, they help in necessary grooming, soft skill training, resume preparation and logistic learning for women with disabilities. The cell has managed to find them jobs in the IT, government and private sectors.

For people with minimal education, the NGO helps get simple and repetitive jobs like in garment factories and the food processing industry. In collaboration with TCS, the NGO organises a training program every year for 'Advanced Computer Training'. As a result, job placement for the trainees is conducted in other companies like Cisco, IBM, Accenture etc.

Issues In Inclusive Accommodation Facilities

People with disabilities require facilities that are inclusive and supportive of their particular disability. For physically challenged people, rails and ramp walks are necessary for a movement to respective places. Hence, for working women with disabilities, the availability of such an environment is a must to sustain life in a new city as a working professional.

The Government of India came up with a working women hostel scheme in 1972 to provide affordable housing facilities to women. They aimed to provide safe and conveniently located accommodation for working women living far away from their families due to professional commitments. The scheme mentioned the reservation of seats for physically challenged beneficiaries.

However, an evaluation report submitted by the Haryali Centre For Rural Development to the Ministry of Women and Child Development stated that a field survey revealed that only 32 per cent of the hostels under the scheme had the provision for reservation for differently-abled women. None of the working women hostels in Bhopal, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, and Surat has seats for differently-abled.

Moreover, the scheme mentions guidelines for implementing facilities for disabled people mandatorily. But just 22 per cent of the hostels have specialised facilities such as ramps, handrails, wheelchairs to aid mobility and disabled-friendly toilets. Seventy-eight per cent of the hostels has no such specialised facilities.

Out of 15 working women hostels with specialised facilities for differently-abled, 43 per cent have specialised toilets, 36 per cent have ramps, and 29 per cent have wheelchairs.

It reflects that the scheme still needs to kick off well, particularly for women with disabilities.

Initiatives taken by NGOs like Mitra Jyothi reflect the upliftment that women with disabilities require to explore various opportunities with accommodation and safety concerns eased out for them. This, in turn, leads to inclusivity for such women not only in terms of the physical environment but also in workspaces as more people take up opportunities when such NGOs try to assist them.

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