The Ethiopian National Association of the Blind celebrated the international disability day in various regions with different events that are related to People with disabilities. Last Saturday the day was celebrated in SNNPR and in Addis Ababa. In the SNNPR, the event was celebrated with questions and answer among students of disabilities at Soddo Secondary School. …
Pre – Job Skill Training organized for Graduates with Disability
ENAB in collaboration with Ethiojobs, has organized a pre job skill development and job search training in two rounds at Addis Ababa for persons with various disability. About 84 persons with disability who are unemployed and graduates within the last 3 years are trained for two days on pre -Job skills and job search at Addis Ababa from June 2 – 3, 2022 and May 16 -17, 2022. Specifically, about 60 Blinds, 13 deaf, 15 physical and 1 Self-care impaired persons are reached in the subsequent trainings.
Economic empowerment is one of the key thematic areas under TOFI project which mainly targets persons with disability. Creating business opportunity and promoting employment access are the key activities in the project to be implemented in nine prioritized towns under ENAB.
Employment opportunity is an integral intervention which brings sustainable income and economic security among the people with disability in particular. It has significant impact given the employment rate among these target group is the lowest (about 10%) in Ethiopia as compared to other population groups.
Several factors may contribute to this but the major cause among others is lack of preJobs skill and employ-ability readiness which limits their personal competitiveness and potential employment advantage. Therefore, providing subsequent training for graduates with disability on prejobs skills and job search is pivotal activity under the project.
In these area, ENAB is an exclusive TOFI EE partner to implement the pre job skill training in Ethiopia and has established cooperative engagement with Ethiojobs which is the leading HR company in the country. To this end, it has signed an operational MoU to provide the trainings jointly in selected 7 major towns. As a consortium project, this is a big success bringing effective collaboration to the private sector level and potentially ensures sustainable engagement with greatest reach out at national level.
The training was diverse and participatory which empowers the participants to share practical challenges and get insight about the basic skills in CV development, personal job readiness, dressing and interview protocols, etc. In addition, experience sharing sessions were held with HR experts and successful employees with disability.
In general, the trainings were well organized, resourceful and engaging which bought full attention of participants and reinforce the relevant of our collaboration with Ethiojobs. Of course, Ethiojobs commitment was greater and found out to be more than cooperative in the sector to discharge their social cooperative responsibility.
We have received big applauses from participants in the feedback sessions and will keep the momentum accordingly. ENAB thanks all partners i,e Ethiojobs, Wereda sector offices and DPOs for their cooperation. The training will continue and scale up to other six towns nationwide in similar and innovative way.
ENAB and ORDA conducted a two days workshop on financial Management and Employment rights of persons with Disabilities at Debre Birhan, Getva Hotel,from December 28-29/2021. The two TOFI partners jointly organized the training for about 70 trainees from Menz Mama and Menz Lalo Midir district of North Shewa Zone & Debre Birhan city, Amhara Region. Persons with disabilities , governmental and non governmental organizations representatives were active participants of the training. Mr Mehari Getaneh, Program manager of TOFI project at ENAB has made the opening speech. He recalled that similar training on the area of Economic empowerment has been conducted in collaboration with the other TOFI partner SOS Ethiopia, at Addis Ababa,Inter Luxury Hotel. The objective of the training was to enhance understanding of participants on the concept of disability inclusion and to let participants develop clear understanding on employment rights of persons with disabilities. In his presentation Yilkal Hassabie(PHD candidate), has underlined that, mainstreaming disability matters because it helps to tackle the exclusion of disabled people, to provide inclusive services and to assure the fundamental human rights of disabled people. Barriers for inclusions and how to enhance the employment rate of persons with disabilities has also been discussed thoroughly.
White cane day celebrated on October 15, 2021 at the headquarter of Ethiopian National Association of the Blind. The participants of the panel discussion which was held at the same day were members of the association, invited guests from governmental and non-governmental organizations , journalists and staff members of ENAB. The importance of white canes for visually impaired people which gives the ability to achieve a full and independent life has been recognized in the discussion.
ENAB conducted a five day Orbit 20 reader training, for selected teachers from the TOFI project schools found in Addis Ababa, SNNPR and Oromia regions. The trainers are from Kilimanjaro Blind Trust Africa in which ENAB approached them through the support of NABP. The Orbit Reader 20 apparatus is a portable, refreshable braille display that consists of features such as: a line of 20 braille cells with pins that arrange into the required pattern to accurately represent any six- or eight-dot braille code, in any language, and for any discipline. it also reads the contents of files on an SD card for Stand-Alone mode .Such training is the first in its type in Ethiopia that introduced a recent technology for the trainees.
A Workshop has been Organized by ENAB TOFI project team members, which was entitled as IDENTIFICATION OF PERSONS WITH DSABILITY(PWD), for economic empowerment trainings. The objective of this workshop was to validate selection criteria of PWD for the upcoming trainings of financial management, entrepreneurship & own saving and loan. The selection tool was prepared by TOFI project partners in collaboration with ENAB. according to Mr Tesfaye who is a National coordinator of Economic Empowerment at ENAB , once the selection is done the participants of the training will be invited depending upon the priority they have got during the selection.
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TOFI Partners ENAB & SOS delivered training on Employment rights of persons with disability. Participants from different sub cities of Addis Ababa who works for governmental administrative sectors, representatives of disability persons organizations and local NGO staffs who mainly works to address the rights of persons with disabilities were invited to join the training. The training was focused on fundamental employment rights of persons with disabilities. In his presentation, Yilkal Hasabie(PHD candidate) , has made a thorough discussion on the available legal mandates of employment rights of the blind. The participants highlighted that such trainings are important and supportive so as to fill the gap of implementing the available employment rights.