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Towards a different Disha
Neeta Lal
meets Rashmi Palwal who has trained and got employment for a workforce of special people
At
first, Rashmi Paliwal’s
garment factory and office in Gurgaon, Haryana, seems like any other.
Full of hustle and bustle, chockful of merchandise, a young woman in
charge of its front office...
Look closely and you
realise how different the entrepreneur’s staff is. The girl at the
reception has cerebral palsy; the office boy—30-year-old Sachin—is
hearing-impaired. Several others in Paliwal’s unique workforce are
visually handicapped, mentally or physically challenged or suffering
from multiple disabilities.
Move around the factory
premises and you’re amazed at differently-abled people adroitly
going about their craft under a monitor’s supervision. Some are
putting tags on garments even as the others slip them into shiny
cellophane packets. In the tailoring department, a few are expertly
cutting up garments, while others are measuring, stitching or sewing
buttons onto them.
"I started out with
just a handful of disabled people when I began my business in
1980," says Paliwal, 52, winner of the 1999 Hellen Keller award
instituted by the National Centre for the Promotion of Employment for
Disabled People (NCPEDP) and the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation. "But
when I saw that a bit of training and encouragement could transform
their lives, give them dignity and a source of livelihood, I got into
it in earnest."
Today, out of Paliwal’s
workforce of 400, there are 35 men and five women who are
differently-abled. Under her project, Disha, she has trained over 200
people and found employment for many in different companies. Paliwal’s
special workforce has also produced uniforms for five schools in Delhi
and put up street plays, apart from lending a helping hand at the
office. "My dream is to run an entire factory with disabled
people who can produce uniforms for schools, airlines, restaurants,
malls..." says the entrepreneur who has a master’s in textile
designing from MS University, Baroda.
Paliwal also employs
counsellors—three full-time and two part-time—at her factory to
assist her workers with special needs. The counsellors occasionally
even pitch in to advise the parents. To further empower the
differently-abled and enhance their employability in the corporate
sector, Paliwal conducts sensitisation workshops for exporters, and
training workshops for those with special needs. She also networks
with NGOs and academic institutes to lobby for their rights. She has
also been involved with research projects on the disabled with IIT
Delhi and Delhi University. "It’s a pity that in a country of
six million disabled people, we’re doing so little to help them. We
need to sensitise people more about this issue," she avers.
Paliwal, who exports
clothing and furnishings to Europe and the US under the brand,
Balloons, employs a unique method to train the physically and mentally
challenged. The person is first put in one of her numerous departments
at the factory to gauge aptitude. If the first department works out
well, s/he stays; otherwise, the person is shifted to another
department and so on until the right match between the person’s
ability and the work is found. This adjustment or orientation may take
anything from three to six months.
"We try and absorb
as many people as feasible. Only in rare cases do we turn people away.
The garment industry has so much scope for these people. That’s why
we’ve been able to place a lot of them with export companies,"
explains Paliwal.
What about the
handicapped person’s productivity? "Well, I wouldn’t say they
are on a par with others but they become proficient after training.
The hearing-impaired of course can perform very well, as can those
with a slight physical handicap. It’s the visually and mentally
challenged people who are a real challenge," she says.
However, Paliwal’s
efforts have yielded very encouraging results. The transformation in
some people, after they have undergone training through Disha, is
dramatic. She recounts the case of a 30-year-old mentally challenged
youth who came to her. He was very violent and had recurrent fits of
banging his head against the wall. But after counselling, the boy’s
condition improved enough for Paliwal to put him in the button-sorting
department. A few months later, the boy became so confident that he
started commuting unescorted to office. "The work, the dignity
associated with a job, and encouragement—all worked like therapy for
him," she says. — WFS
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