Empowering Disabled Persons for Job Opportunities in ASEAN

(27/04/2012)

The Government is ready to support activities to empower people with disabilities. Thailand will also expand the activities to give a helping hand to disabled persons for greater opportunities in the ASEAN region. The issue was brought up at a press conference on the “1479 Project to Empower People with Disabilities from Eastern to Northeastern Thailand.” The press conference took place at the Headquarters of the Government Public Relations Department in Bangkok on 26 April 2012. General Chaiyasit Shinawatra, Advisor to the Prime Minister, and Honorary Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Project, said that the empowering of people with disabilities will encourage them to become aware of their rights and potential. He said that the Government was ready to join hands with the private sector in helping disabled persons develop their potential and creativity and providing them with greater opportunities for a better quality of life. The 1479 Project to Empower People with Disabilities from Eastern to Northeastern Thailand is carried out by the Redemptorist Foundation for People with Disabilities, which is a charitable organization. The foundation aims to empower people with disabilities through employment and to enhance their potential, so that they can live equally in society with their able-bodied neighbors. Under the project, a caravan of 80 disabled persons on wheelchairs will on 7 May 2012 depart from the Redemptorist Vocational School for People with Disabilities in Pattaya, the eastern province of Chon Buri, for the Northeast, a distance of 1479 kilometers. The caravan will pass through Chachoengsao, Samut Prakan, Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Ayutthaya, Ang Thong, Lop Buri, Saraburi, Nakhon Ratchasima, Khon Kaen, Kalasin, Maha Sarakham, Roi Et, Sakon Nakhon, Udon Thani, and Nong Bua Lamphu. It will end the 49-day trip in the northeastern province of Nong Khai on June 23. In Nong Khai, an international seminar on the ASEAN Economic Community and job opportunities for people with disabilities will be held from June 21 to 25. The project also calls for the establishment of a vocational training center for people with disabilities in Nong Khai to provide them with training. On the way to the Northeast, the Department of Employment and the National Office for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities will offer job placement and other services for the disabled. The caravan will visit Lao PDR on June 25-26 and return to Bangkok on June 27. The hotline 1479 will offer counseling services for disabled persons around the clock during the period. Statistics compiled by the National Statistical Office in 2007 show that, out of the Thai population of 65 million, 1.87 million were disabled person, accounting for 2.9 percent of the population. A majority of the disabled persons lived in rural areas and most of them were poor. Empowering the disabled will allow them to earn a decent living, so that they will be able to contribute more to their families and society.