SINGAPORE: Disabled people who are hoping to find gainful employment can now turn to a S$12.7 million training centre that offers IT courses and apprenticeships.
Located at Peng Nguan Street off Tiong Poh Road, the centre aims to provide 4,000 training places over the next three years to people with physical, sensory and developmental disabilities.
29—year—old Muhamad Nasrin Jafar is wheelchair—bound after a traffic accident about three—and—a—half years ago.
Since then, the former technician — who used to take home about S$1,500 a month — has been out of job.
But things are looking up for Muhamad Nasrin as he is one of seven trainees who have been accepted in the IT Apprenticeship Programme to pick up skills in Graphic Art.
He said: "I hope companies will be able to accept people with disabilities, like me."
For a start, the IT Apprenticeship Programme offers three career tracks in Corporate Services, Multimedia Design, as well as Music and Video Production. Trainees will undergo between three and 12 months of training.
So far, eight companies have committed to offering internship opportunities and employment to trainees upon their course completion. These companies include Blue Singapore, Fico Sports Hub, Kentucky Fried Chicken and FurnisHub.
Despite that, trainees will still face some challenges.
Royson Poh, manager of the IT Apprenticeship Programme, Society for the Physically Disabled, said: "Many of them are unable to use the public transport... and they may need to travel on pavements that have no shelter to wheel themselves to the workplace."
Companies like Microsoft, whose funding of S$1 million in the past two years has contributed to the set up of the training centre, have provided fee subsidies and transportation for the less mobile trainees.
The centre also houses Asia’s first Assistive Technology Loan Library, which allows people with various disabilities to borrow communication devices.
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