Helen Keller Award winners felicitated

The winners of the NCPEDP-Mindtree Helen Keller awards 2017 were today felicitated here for furthering employment opportunities for persons with disabilities.
This year, ten awards have been presented under three different categories, honorary director of the non profit group National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled Persons (NCPEDP) Javed Abidi said.
The winners, including individuals and organisations, were felicitated at a function held at the India International Centre auditorium.
"No disability is big or small, we do not suffer because of these disabilities but because of the society's attitude and stereotypes," Devanshi Joshi, winner of the award in role model disabled person category, said.

Abidi said that a three pe rcent quota in public sector was introduced for the first time in 1970s.
"Since 1970 to 1995 (when the first law came) it took 20 years to correct the thinking of people that a disabled person can not only be a peon in a company but can also work as an officer," he said.
The Helen Keller Award was instituted after a study of the top 100 companies in the country by the NCPEDP in 1999.
The study showed that there are less than one per cent people with disabilities in the public, private and multinational organisations, Abidi said.