Amazon India signs An MOU With The Ministry of Social Justice And Empowerment

The motive behind signing this memorandum is to progress its vision for empowering people with disabilities. 

Amazon India signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment to engage with employable youth with a disability. The MoU which extends until March 2024 will aim to provide skilling and employment opportunities through Job fairs to tens of thousands of PwD across the country. The tripartite agreement between DePwD, SCPwD and Amazon focuses on skilling, certification, entrepreneurship designed to uniquely enable and position PwD participation in mainstream society in line with the PMO vision on Inclusive development, and self-reliance to build an Atmanirbhar Bharath.

Through this initiative, Amazon aims to provide people with disabilities the needed support, training, and intervention by creating an environment of acceptance and inclusion, approach with a sensitized experience in their skilling experience. Amazon will support interventions by the Ministry in their Resource centers nationally.

Dr. Virendra Kumar, Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment said, “This initiative will empower and create a brighter future for People with Disabilities. Private sector’s empathy, and participation will assist in providing more job and entrepreneurship opportunities. The social and financial empowerment of PWDs is extremely important in realizing the prime minister’s vision for a self-reliant nation. I welcome Amazon India’s initiative towards building a more inclusive workforce.”

Akhil Saxena, Vice President, Customer Fulfillment - APAC, MENA, LATAM and WW Customer Service, Amazon, said, "At Amazon India, we foster a culture that is conducive to growth and offers people equal opportunities to unlock their full potential. Persons with Disability in India face many challenges when looking to develop employable skills and in gaining meaningful employment. With this project, we aim to focus on skilling and livelihood-oriented empowerment for PwDs, over a period of 12 to 24 months. This complements our existing programs to provide direct employment opportunities to under-represented cohorts."

Additionally, the company also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Sarthak Educational Trust (SET) for a special grant of 25 million INR, which is directed towards reducing the skill gap in employable young PwDs through a state-of-the-art Global Resource Center (GRC). The grant will be used to create a center of excellence for employment and vocational training within Sarthak Global Resource Center to support its effort to mainstream disability. The program will enable tens of thousands of people with a disability to register for employment via an exclusive job portal app. Along with supporting the operational costs for the job portal, Amazon will also be the knowledge partner to develop the online & offline training modules for e-commerce skilling. To achieve a better and more sustainable future for all, both Amazon India and Sarthak are contributing to the Global Sustainable Development Goals by targeting four specific goals, i.e., Ensure Healthy Lives and promote well-being for all at all ages; Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all; Promote sustained, inclusive, and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all; and Reduce - Inequity in opportunities.

In addition to this focus on skilling PwDs, Amazon runs various programs for diverse underrepresented cohorts encompassing not just PwDs but also women, military veterans and people from the LGBTQIA+ community. The company has pioneered the ‘Silent Delivery Station’ through the Delivery Service Partner program in Mumbai in January 2017, where the station is run by individuals with speech and hearing impairment. Additionally, Amazon has initiatives designed to create opportunities for persons with hearing impairment in its operations sites. The pilot started in 2017 with a handful of associates with speech and hearing impairment, who were trained to pack shipments at the Amazon fulfillment center. This initiative has now expanded across our operations network

across the country. Additionally, Amazon India has actively employed PwD in corporate roles including junior and mid management roles.