Starting Monday, the outsourcing capital of the world will host a training centre for call centre executives with a difference. Catering exclusively to persons with disabilities, this training centre will equip potential candidates with all the requisite skills — both hard and soft — and client handling etiquette.
Called Samarthanam “Shristi”, this training unit was inaugurated at KRUPHWODS (Karnataka Rural Poor Handicapped Women's Development Society), Peenya, here on Saturday. Armed with these skills, the training unit will also help place these candidates in companies across the State.
Besides being tailor-made for the differently abled, the institute has been set up with a unique public-private partnership model. An extension of the usual public-private partnership model, it has the State Department of Disabled and Senior Citizens and the Union Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances, partnering with a corporate telecom firm, ADC India, and Samarthanam.
Addressing the press, M.V. Savithri, Director, Department of Welfare of the Disabled and Senior Citizens, congratulated Samarthanam for taking the initiative and extended the department's support for smooth running of the project.
Raj Raj Kumar, Managing director, ADC India, extended his support to the business process outsourcing (BPO) initiative.
Meenu Bambani, Global Head of CSR at Mphasis, stated that disability is not a hindrance to education and employment opportunities with such initiatives and also said that the company would hire the first batch of candidates after the training.
Samarthanam's role
It was Samarthanam, a non-governmental organisation working in the disability rights sector, which initiated the setting up of this training centre at Peenya. A similar centre was set up in Hubli recently.
Starting with 25 youth with physical disabilities who have enrolled for the programme, the centre will expand to train at least 300 such youth every year.
“At a time, we can train 75 candidates. This will include persons with varying levels of disability, and we will tie up with several corporates to get them placed,” says Swaroopa Venkatesh, Communications Manager, Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled. “We have five or six BPO firms on board unofficially,” she added.
The training centre and call centre facilities will be accessible to the needs of people with disabilities and will incorporate assistive aids such as interactive classrooms, audio visual aids, CRM, Jaws and simulationsoftware.
Samarthanam has evolved the training module which includes the latest and the best inputs from the BPO industry.
Food and accommodation is provided free along with placement assistance at the end of course based on candidates performance.
