A two-year project titled “Understanding, Developing, and Supporting Meaningful Work for Youth with Disabilities in Bhutan: Networks, Communities, and Transitions” was launched at Royal Thimphu College today.
The project is to raise awareness of the challenges that Bhutanese with disabilities face particularly in finding work and employment.
As part of the project launch, Bhutanese and International experts highlighted the challenges and opportunities faced by the young adults with disabilities at a daylong Symposium at RTC.
“There is a whole range of activities that we are going to do in the next two years. Now we are raising awareness for talking about the issues highlighting what challenges and opportunities do disabilities in Bhutan face? In future we will do research around the country as well as many different kinds of schemes and interventions,” Dr Matthew Schuelka, the Project Leader for University of Birmingham (UK), said,
“We are doing a range of things including microfinance grants for launching different coordinators and different sectors. We try to help person with disabilities in Bhutan find employment of participation in the community. We are also bringing 10 Bhutanese to the united states for extra training as well as providing in-country training for agencies’ employers and person with disabilities themselves over the next two years.”
The Nu 50 M project will be implemented by RTC in collaboration with the University of Birmingham (UK) and the University of Minnesota in the United States. It is funded by the UK Government’s Official Development Assistance, Global Challenges Research Fund.
