Bangladesh Business and Disability Network receives Zero Project Award

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The Zero Project announced Bangladesh Business and Disability Network (BBDN) as one of their award winners in the category of Innovative Practices in Employment from the Business Sector, for the year 2021. BBDN was recognized for the establishment of the business and disability network and successfully facilitating job placements of people with disabilities by bringing employers, disability focused NGOs and DPOs together to work collectively on inclusive employment.

Nayem Molla is a person with a physical disability who was recently placed as an intern under the ULIP program of Unilever Bangladesh. As part of the Inclusion Works (IW), BBDN and other partner organizations provided soft skills training and capacity building support to Nayem and counselled him to get selected for the prestigious internship.

Under the European Union-funded Skills-21 Project of ILO Bangladesh, BBDN arranged a 3-days long online workshop on Disability Inclusion as part of the disability confidence capacity building of 7 model Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) institutes and 2 model Teachers’ Training Colleges. BBDN is also supporting the TVET institutes and local Organizations of Persons with Disabilities to develop partnerships to ensure inclusion in the long-term as part of the Disability Inclusion Action Plan of each institute.

Mustakimur Rahman is a person with a physical disability from Chattogram. Mustakim came to know about the Innovation to Inclusion (i2i consortium). bKash, the largest mobile financial services company in Bangladesh, expressed their interest in hiring persons with disabilities. After i2i partners provided training to Mustakim on call centre management, bKash recruited him. Having faced a lot of discrimination in his life because of his disability, Mustakim is now happy to have entered the workforce.