Local persons living with disability get employment ready!
"So we introduced the learnership to ensure that they can get a qualification and internships and hopefully absorb them into Sage permanently.”
Individuals living with disability from Lead Change Development NPO recently got an amazing chance to explore their careers through the Sage Pathways programme annual work readiness event.
The innovative event which seeks to provide a solution to challenges of accessing employment opportunities for people with disabilities, marked three years since the project kicked off with the Dobsonville based NPO.
Faith Ramusetheli, Transformation Director at Sage said the company wanted to drive change through diversifying its space through its various programmes in particular to women and disabled persons.
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“One thing we have been driving is diversity, inclusion and equality. A key part of this strategy was to ensure that we begin to change the conversation and create these opportunities.
“Many people with disabilities continue to be excluded from opportunities and our focus was to make sure we start employing people with disabilities. We realized the importance of tapping into groups that were not focused on.”
Ramusetheli added that the programme will ensure applicants get to obtain qualifications and work experience with Sage’s finance operations team or sales division.
“We realised that people living with disabilities don’t get many opportunities to go into university or finish their matric.
“So we introduced the learnership to ensure that they can get a qualification and internships and hopefully absorb them into Sage permanently.”
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Shaun Soko, founder of LeadChange Developments said its partnership with Sage was a major success and change to those living with disability.
“This creates a platform for individuals that are disabled to access opportunities. Through this, our learners are able to apply for any available internships or employment opportunities.
“The beauty of this is that it bypasses the system, opens a fair chance of selection and even the playing ground for people with disabilities.”
The organisation which has been based in Kopanong focuses on empowering persons with disability with a number of skills, primarily in ICT.
According to Soko, through the partnership over the three years, 10 people with disabilities have successfully and permanently been placed with sage.
Sage funds the NPO through IT training and take them from introductory to specialist level of training and adult learning centres, for those without matric.
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“It is very successful, especially looking at the unemployment rate. And amongst disabled people they particularly struggle because they are competing with the masters of job seekers.
“Given the academic levels with disability, is that many of them don’t have matric, which is often a major hindrance, the initiative is a great response to creating and accessing employment as opposed to them being idle.”
