More than a billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s total population, are living with some form of disability.
In the Philippines, results of the National Disability Prevalence Survey showed that in 2016, around 12 percent of Filipinos aged 15 and older experienced severe disability.
Yet, even until today, persons with disability (PWDs) are still often stereotyped, stigmatized, and discriminated against.
PWDs face a number of societal barriers, which include lack of access to opportunities to quality education and employment. In recent years, however, positive movement toward inclusivity in the workplace has become more evident.
In line with the National Disability Prevention and Rehabilitation Week, the Philippine Business and Disability Network (PBDN), together with its members, partners, and sponsors, held “Working Beyond Barriers,” a two-day online conference on July 20 and 21, 2022. The event shed some light about the opportunities and challenges in disability inclusion in the workplace, and also tackled current and potential policies and practices that further promote participation and representation of PWDs.
As a country-level platform, PBDN is a group for and by businesses that work toward more inclusive and barrier-free workplaces for persons with disability. It is currently a 22-member network, led by its current steering committee, which are JPMorgan Chase & Co., IBM, PayPal, Asurion and Citihub. It believes that anyone—especially businesses—can open more opportunities for persons with disability to participate in, and productively contribute to their communities through its 3Cs mission: “Connect, Capacitate and Collaborate.”
“We Connect companies to Person with Disability talents; we Capacitate companies to promote and build disability-inclusive workplaces; and we Collaborate with different stakeholders to improve the workforce participation of persons with disability,” said Pixie Javier-Gutierrez, representing JPMorgan Chase & Co., the present chair of the PBDN Steering Committee.
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