SOFOFA’s Inclusive Business Network presented its assessment of 2018 at its 13th General Assembly

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21 Feb 2019

The Inclusive Business Network of SOFOFA-ILO held its 13th General Assembly on 10 January 2019, where the milestones of 2018 and the strategic planning for 2019 were presented.

The meeting was attended by the President of the Federation of Chilean Industry (SOFOFA), Bernardo Larraín, the Chilean Labor Director, Mauricio Peázola, the Director of the Inclusive Business Network, Víctor Dagnino, and the Disability Inclusion Officer at the International Labor Organization (ILO), Jürgen Menze, who sent his greetings in a video. CEOs and executives from the 43 member companies of the network participated in this event.

Bernardo Larraín, the president of SOFOFA, opened the event with a welcome speech, in which he highlighted the important mission of the Inclusive Business Network and SOFOFA towards disability: “This initiative is within the framework of our Private Solutions/Public Challenges Section, which we want to become SOFOFA’s signature.”

Víctor Dagnino, the president of the Inclusive Business Network, spoke along the same lines: “In SOFOFA, we anticipated the Labor Inclusion Act (Chilean Law No. 21.015). SOFOFA’s Disability Centre was created in 1992, and in 2015 the Inclusive Business Network was launched, where we are working to make this country better and more inclusive.

We must not forget that there are over a million unemployed people with disabilities in Chile, and we must help them be better prepared so they can get a job.”

Afterward, a video presenting the milestones of the Inclusive Business Network in 2018 was shown.

Last October, the Inclusive Business Network, represented by Rodrigo Carvajal, its Director, saw its membership in the ILO Global Business and Disability Network ratified. Similarly, last December, some representatives of the Network took part in the Forum of the Ibero-American Social Security Organization, “Ibero-America is inclusive”, where there was an exchange of experiences and good practices when hiring people with disabilities.

Towards the end of the 13th Assembly, the results of the survey that the members of the Inclusive Business Network took in 2018 were shown, as well as the study “Validation to estimate the economic value of hiring people with disabilities”, developed with the help of the ILO.

Finally, María Luisa Ibor, a member of the board of the Inclusive Business Network, presented their strategic planning for 2019-2020. Their objectives include continuing generating spaces for a dialogue that contributes to the labor inclusion of people with disabilities, consciously and with corporate responsibility, and inviting more companies to join the Network.