Businesses urged to hire disabled people
JAKARTA (JP): An expert has urged businesspeople to employ disabled persons in their companies.
Soelarto Reksoprodjo, head of the Rehabilitation Department in the School of Medicine of the University of Indonesia, told reporters yesterday that businesspeople should give opportunities to disabled persons in order to boost the latter's self-esteem.
Speaking during a break in a premeeting of the Asia and Pacific Regional Conference of Rehabilitation International, he said that for this purpose the authorities need to sponsor a bill, which will regulate business enterprises' obligations to provide job opportunities to the less fortunate members of the society.
The conference, which will be opened by President Soeharto this morning and attended by 500 delegates from 21 countries, will discuss the problems of rehabilitation for disabled persons.
Soelarto said that the companies must provide the disabled with appropriate jobs.
"If they cannot afford to provide one at their plants, they can do it at a sheltered workshop for the disabled," he said.
Soelarto, who was also one of the speakers at the meeting, said that a paralytic can be a better telephone operator than a non-paralytic person.
"If a telephone operator is non-paralytic, they might leave their post from time to time to hang around," he added.
"We should give the disabled chances to have self-esteem and try to give them back their social function," he added.
Soelarto said that to prepare a bill on this matter is not easy because it needs to go through a long procedure but other countries have a law on disabled people's rights," he said.
He expressed hope that the law, once it is passed, would help the disabled get jobs and give them opportunities to mix with other members of society.
Yesterday's meeting also discussed cultural and humanitarian approaches toward disabled children.
S. K. Mahar Mardjono, chairperson of the Society for the Care of Disabled Children, told The Jakarta Post that the organization conducts such approaches in its teaching methods.
"We have done it in our 16 schools throughout Indonesia," she said.
"We don't only care for their physical condition but also their artistic creativity," she said.
She said that at the schools, disabled students are taught to play simple instruments such as angklung (bamboo musical instrument) and to dance.
"Under a rehabilitation program, music is very important therapy for disabled children," she said.
By learning music, the children are motivated to move and to activate their paralyzed limbs, she added.
She said the students are also taught to write poems, to paint, read the Koran, the Moslem holy book, and to take part in sports activities.
"These activities can give the children self-esteem," she said.
She added said there are still children who are too shy to join their friends in the activities and in these cases the teachers have to stimulate them, although it is no easy job.
"Luckily we have qualified teachers at our schools," she added.
Barbara Kolucki, a media consultant of the U.S.-based Children with Disabilities and Peace Education, told the Post that she is using culture to teach children, both disabled and normal, specially about peace.
Kolucki, a presenter of the World Bank Workshop on Investing in Children in Especially Difficult Circumstances, said that in carrying out her project in developing countries, such as Liberia, Srilanka and Lebanon, the people she worked with used their unique culture.
"I think that a lot of countries are taking in too much Western influence and they don't keep their own cultural history, which is theirs," she said.
Indonesian teachers can also use the local approach to teach not only the culture itself but also other sciences, she added.
Kolucki said that by teaching children to dance, teachers also teach them mathematics. (05)