Thums Up Being Human VEER - a campaign of strength and self-belief, to generate awareness and advocate for inclusivity, accessibility and employability of people with disabilities - will work with the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment in its mission to provide skill training to five lakh PwDs in the next three years.
VEER, since its initiation has enrolled and trained over 1,000 PwDs, sensitized nearly 150 corporate employers, helped provide jobs to 573 PwDs, within the first 15 months of the program.
In its next phase, VEER targets to raise Rs. two crores in corpus and provide skill training to more than 2,000 PwDs.
Hans Foundation, an NGO operating in the area of empowering marginalized sector in disability space, is joining the movement and has committed to match funds, proportionate to contributions received.
Lov Verma, Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment; Debabrata Mukherjee, Vice President, Commercial and Marketing, Coca-Cola India; M.A. Ravi Kumar, CEO, American India Foundation ; Viji Venkatesh, Trustee - Being Human - The Salman Khan Foundation; and Boniface Prabhu, wheelchair tennis star and Thums Up VEER athlete, announced the launch of Season 2 of VEER.
Representatives of VEER partners - National Deaf Society, SNS Foundation and National Association for the Blind amongst others were also present at the occasion.
A special panel discussion was also held with the employers and other stakeholders addressing challenges such as inclusive education and employment, skill training and development and advocating disabled-friendly technology.
The participants outlined roles that can be played by the government, corporates, not-for-profit organizations, policy makers and think tanks on the way forward to empower the 'specially-abled' of the country.
"The Thums Up philosophy of being passionate and strong is something that drives this program. Through VEER, we want to encourage all the differently abled to unleash their potential, be strong and overcome the barriers they face. We are happy with the achievements of the program in its first year and are excited about the milestones being set for the second phase, where our endeavor will be to accelerate the pace and double the deliverables of the first year," said Mukherjee while speaking on the occasion.
"We have worked with some great partners like Being Human - The Salman Khan Foundation and AIF and are extremely delighted to now have Hans Foundation on board. I congratulate all the VEERs who have overcome their limitation and wish them to unleash their potential - 'Toofansabkeandarhotahai, bas dhakkanhataneke deer hai!'," he added.
The American India Foundation (AIF), which is committed to catalyzing social and economic change in India and building a lasting bridge between the United States and India through high-impact interventions in education, livelihoods, public health and leadership development with particular emphasis on empowering girls and women to achieve gender equity, released the first year completion report of the program VEER on the occasion.
The AIF report highlights the work done by VEER, in its first year, including the types of initiatives under VEER, partner corporates and success stories. The AIF report also detailed the progress made by the programme and roles played by several partners.
