Hyderabad : Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) face limited opportunities to learning, skilling and employment due to accessibility issues and face isolation. Skills for Persons with Disability is a very important component under DFID Skills for Jobs programme. Department for International Development (DFID)-UK government and Skill Council for Persons with Disability (SCPwD) with experts from National Star College, United Kingdom organized a 4 day pilot Top- Up Training of Trainers (ToTs) programme in collaboration with National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (NIEPID) at Hyderabad. After the four day training, 23 qualified Trainers received joint certificate awarded by SCPwD and National Star College-UK.
This was followed by a session on Assistive Technology with demonstration of online and offline tools for PWDs at auditorium of NIEPID. Rapid technological development has created a lot of options for PwDs with the advent of “Assistive Technologies”. Ms. Anu Gupta, Head Skills & Inclusion (DFID-India) gave opening remarks and highlighted DFID initiatives for PwD skilling & employment. Mr Andrew Fleming, Deputy High Commissioner of British Deputy High Commission gave a special address and emphasized on the need of more such collaborative sensitization sessions in the future. He further highlighted how assistive technology would support in mitigating challenges faced by PwDs. Mr. David Finch, Director National Star College-UK took over the session and provided insights on new assistive technologies which are being used successfully in the UK. He demonstrated many hardware and software assistive tools that could be used by PwDs, practitioners and caregivers. The session covered topics such as Principles of assistive technology, assessment, solutions (software/apps, hardware and in-built tools) and various UK knowledge resources.
Among others present were Major Ram Kumar, Deputy Director NIEPID, Dr Niharika Nigam, Head Quality & Standards- SCPwD, Mr. G Srinivasulu- Lecturer and many participated from corporates, NGOs and students.
Over 150 participants from various PwD training providers, PwD employers, NIEPID staff and practitioners, relevant NGOs and PwDs participated. DFID intends to test such pilots in India and plans to scale up successful pilots under their Skills for Jobs programme next year in collaboration with relevant stakeholders. A similar top –up Training of Trainer and Training of Master Trainer programme for Intellectual Disability trainers will be conducted in Delhi in the month of December.
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