Date:07/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/07/stories/2008100750720200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

They find themselves enabled now

Staff Reporter

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES: Participants at a job fair organised for persons with disabilities in Bangalore.

BANGALORE: Next time you visit a Café Coffee Day outlet here, you could be sipping your favourite cappuccino brewed by a specially-abled barista. For, persons with hearing impairment were offered jobs as brew masters by the outlet during a job fair for unskilled persons with disability on Sunday.

The fair, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with Enable India, had 70 enthusiastic participants with physical disability, hearing and vision impairment and cerebral palsy, and a record 68 persons were selected. While many candidates were from Bangalore, several came from places such as Kolar, Tumkur and Chickaballapur.

“We are surprised at the high conversion rate in the job fair and a decision to hold similar fairs will be taken after a couple of months,” Enable India founder Shanti Raghavan told The Hindu. She said: “We have placed more than 100 persons with hearing impairment as brew masters in Café Coffee Day’s outlets in Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune since 2005.”

Physically challenged Lingaraju (26), a native of Chamarajanagar, had remained unsuccessful in landing a job for four years. On Sunday, he was offered the position of a room supervisor in one of the serviced apartments here.

“Such job fairs should grow bigger to accommodate more persons, and their success depends on our commitment. I will tell my friends about it and ask them to register with Enable India,” Mr. Lingaraju said.

After undertaking job analysis, manual segment jobs for the unskilled such as housekeeping, stewards, office assistants, cashiers and others had been offered apart from brew masters job. Companies including Integra Garments, ITC Agarbathi, ITC Hotels, Dusters and Building Control Solutions attended the fair.