Building Employer Confidence in Disability
Internship and Training Program

Photo by Marcus Aurelius (via Pexels)

In Australia, there are over 5 million people with disability and almost half are of working age. We need to look to the enormous untapped potential of the approximate 1 million Australians with disability who are seeking employment. There has previously been an increased focus on low-skilled, short term jobs and programs (driven by government compliance requirements) instead of focusing on building careers of people with a disability. And when you live with a disability and come from a CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) background, the challenges increase.

Our new project ‘Building Employer Confidence and Inclusion in Disability’ aims to place 22 CALD people and refugees that live with a disability into 7 medium to large scale organizations for a paid internship of 12 weeks, with focus on converting these internships into paid employment. All training and coaching will be provided along with a workplace mentor for every intern.

Our bigger aim is to create awareness and affect change in policies and procedures (including recruitment) within these organizations to make them more inclusive. While ambitious, we believe all of us as individuals, communities and businesses can make this happen.

If you are a CALD person with a disability or know of one looking for employment, OR if you are an employer that is interested in hosting an intern, please contact Perrin Abbas via email [email protected]