Don Bosco Job Placement Network holds job fair for youth with disabilities

(MissionNewswire) Don Bosco Job Placement Network in India, through collaboration with Bangalore Rural Education and Development Society (BREADS), organized a job fair for employment seekers with disabilities. Working with Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled, Don Bosco Job Placement Network held the job fair at Bell Hotel Majestic for more than 100 candidates with varying levels of disability.

At the job fair, Quess Corp. Pvt. Ltd. Bangalore recruited candidates for jobs in warehousing, business process outsourcing and e-commerce, and logistics (packing and billing). The Don Bosco Job Placement Network coordinator and the Quess team assisted the candidates in career counseling and explaining the job roles. Of nearly 40 candidates who applied for the various jobs, 12 received immediate offers and others were shortlisted for future placement.

The Don Bosco Job Placement Network aims to improve employment opportunities for underserved job seekers through career guidance and skills training. The organization also enables access to secure job markets through job referral services, ensuring retention, and improving quality job opportunities with adequate wages and decent, safe, and secure working conditions.

“Don Bosco Job Placement Network helps to train youth in fields that are hiring so they can make an easier transition from the classroom to the workforce,” said Father Gus Baek, director of Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco. “Youth with disabilities deserve these same opportunities so they become contributing members of their communities.”

Access to professional training and workforce development services is highly valued in India. The country, which is home to 1.34 billion people (18 percent of the world’s population), will have overtaken China as the world’s most populous country by 2024, according to the World Economic Forum. While India has the world’s largest youth population, it has yet to capitalize on this, leaving some 30 percent of this population without employment, education or training.

India has the world’s fourth largest economy but more than 22 percent of the country lives in poverty. About 31 percent of the world’s multidimensionally poor children live in India, according to a report by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.

India’s youth face a lack of educational opportunities due to issues of caste, class and gender. Almost 44 percent of the workforce is illiterate and less than 10 percent of the working-age population has completed a secondary education. In addition, many secondary school graduates do not have the knowledge and skills to compete in today’s changing job market.

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Sources:

Photo courtesy of Don Bosco India

Don Bosco India – Job Fair for Differently-abled

Don Bosco Job Placement Network of India

Salesian Missions – India

World Bank – India