Career Advancement Workshop for PWD

A Career Advancement Workshop for People with Disabilities was organised by the Challenges magazine in collaboration with SENET and LA 21 MBPJ on 8/6/2008. The Workshop attended by 31 PWD mainly the deaf aimed at teaching them to write good resume, cover letter for job application, preparing for an interview and other good preparation to land a job. The participants enjoyed the lively sections delivered by staff from SENET. I was there to enlighten the participants on programmes initiated by MBPJ in making PJ a barrier free city. I spoke about the need to right the wrong perception of general public for PWD. Definition for PWD should include people who cannot achieve his/her desires due to barrier of environment. For example, senior citizen having difficulty to clair up the stair, child having the problem to reach handset of public phone for an emergency call and expecting women with difficult to jump over to other side separated by a monsoon drain are all classified as temporary PWD. With that, for sure everybody might be more than willing to do something within his/her jurisdicion as it affects everyone either directly or indirectly or now or later.

A holistic and integrated approach combining the social, economy, physical and capacity building aspects is adopted by MBPJ. Some programmes include the PWD friendly walkway and facilities in Section 52 and SS2 Town Centre, Free transit service for PWD, economic opportunities for PWD etc. Having said this, more need to be done especially behavioural change of the people and government officers. We have to be sensible in providing the space and facilities for all. Little gesture is good enough. For retails shop owners, why are you putting your goods in the corridor blocking the right of way; for motorcyclist, why should you park your motor on the walkway; for drivers, is that so difficult for you to find a parking lot that you rather occupied the reserve lot for PWD; for shopping centre operators, can you provide accessible features to bring in more PWD potential customers; for money laundering people, why should you stick your advertisement on the notice board; for government officers, why should plant a tree or place a traffic sign at the middle of walkway; for car workshop, if you could build a ramp for cars to drive in your shop, why don't you do it with 1:12 degree... the list can go on

MBPJ is certainly committed to create an inclusive society and we welcome similar initiative from others. Shall we?