The Hindu Business Line : `Voices' seeks to be heard

Carmela Nayak is having trouble with her sibilants. She keeps mixing up `s' and `sh' to the mild chagrin of the resource person and freelance voice coach, Shriee Srinivas.

"Have you been practising," asks Shriee.

"Yes," says Carmela.

"In front of a mirror?"

Carmela shakes her head.

Shriee tells her how important this is and Carmela promises to have her `She sells sea shells' sorted out by the next class. She's going to have to if she wants that call-centre job.

Carmela, who works as a receptionist at the Shri Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind in Bangalore, is physically challenged. She walks slowly with a pronounced limp, but obviously this has no bearing on your typical BPO job requirement. And so, as with the other five students in her course, she is determined to break into the corporate world for better growth, better opportunity, and, of course, better pay.

The group has gathered at Voices, an NGO committed to media for social change, located on a quiet lane in Indiranagar, Bangalore. In the park opposite, the basketball court is filling up with evening players and shouts from a cricket game in progress echo around the area.

Within this room, it is the call of the BPO that is heard the loudest — where, if it isn't medical transcription, it's call-centre work they're after. Carmela explains what she is looking for. "I want to improve my knowledge and build a good future. My aim is to get a nice job."

Coach Shriee is on her fifth batch of students and the course is doing well. According to her, there has been `good placement' of students in the corporate sector - with many students at MphasiS, the first corporate partner of the programme.

"We had people from IBM and other places and everybody seemed interested," says Shriee. "Most of them are call centres and BPOs. Since these places look at accent, grammar and language as their priority, we thought we'd call in candidates from various other NGOs and keep it open to the public as well."

This is how the project got going and the first batch had over 30 people in it. "This place was jam-packed," says Shriee with a laugh. As a result, Voices had to introduce a screening programme to make sure only the most determined made it through.

In addition to pronunciation, grammar and phonetics, Shriee covers personality development, conversational and office skills — with a bit of computer education thrown in. She is aware that every company has its own training programme, so she makes sure that she covers as much ground as she can. "I just give them a very strong and brief view of everything."

But how are the companies placed to accept these new workers? "They've actually worked on it," says Shriee. "They've created a more comfortable ambience and identified staff members who can be of help."

This is when many companies decided that if MphasiS can do it, they could too. But the word needs to be spread further and faster. And, as one person close to the programme pointed out, "there is a big difference between people saying what they are going to do and what they finally do."

To be fair, dealing with disability needs a big commitment. Making an environment friendly to the physically challenged, for example, demands structural changes: ramps, wider corridors, specially designed toilets...

The 1995 Persons with Disabilities Act says that the biggest challenges are access, inclusion and employment. The numbers give an idea of how large these challenges are. "Right now, about 7 per cent of India's population is disabled — that's more people than in the State of Uttaranchal," says Ashish Sen, Director, Voices.

Sen says that while disability "still gets the short shrift", the situation is better today than it was two years ago. "The media has plugged-in in a bigger way," he says.

But even so, Sunitha S. and Shridevi Kodekal, both physically disabled students in the current batch, have stories of rejection in the corporate world. "They see us from far away and reject us," says Shridevi, who walks with the help of crutches. "They do not see our intelligence or anything, they see only our disability and say we will not be able to do the work."

Sunitha's reaction to similar incidents is a cry for awareness: "They should know that we are physically challenged, not mentally challenged." Shridevi suggests that there should be a reservation system. However, one wonders whether reservation is the way forward. Wouldn't you want to be hired on the basis of your skills and not because of a quota that has to be filled?

Agreeing with this in principle, Shridevi however says, "We need to at least get to an interview." She spiritedly sums up the prevailing attitude of the disabled people in her circle: "Either this way or that way — any way we want to rush — that's all."

Even this most modest of efforts by Voices has widened the corporate corridor and made the rush a little bit easier.

Contact Voices at 080-25213902

The Quest Features & Footage, Kochi

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
The boxer and the Mahatma

Care for the wine menu?

Look who's buying...
Indian jewellery

Yeh tera ghar yeh mera ghar

`Voices' seeks to be heard

Deccan dreams

In the eye of the hurricane

Beyond the rat-trap