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SINGAPORE: Better employment opportunities will be the new focus for SG Enable, the agency already dedicated to integrating persons with disabilities in Singapore.

Social and Family Development Minister Chan Chun Sing announced this on Friday at the appointment ceremony of the new steering committee to the Enabling Employers Network (EEN).

Formed in July, the agency promotes an inclusive society through providing support to persons with disabilities.

The agency will provide disabled persons with the necessary skills and training to prepare them for the workforce.

Funding support and consultancy advice will also be made available to employers if they need to redesign their work environment, like building ramps for wheelchair-bound persons.

At the ceremony on Friday, three new members were appointed to the steering committee. They are UE Solutions Singapore, Bain & Company and Microsoft Singapore.

They join six other companies already in the committee: InterContinental Hotel, Holiday Inn Singapore, Eureka Call Centre Systems, Han's F&B, National Parks Board and Spice Connect.

Mr Chan said: "We have to find better ways take care of them not just from a financial perspective but also to meet some of their social, emotional needs and this is why we want to make a big, big push to up the employment for our persons with disabilities to provide them with more job opportunities, to take care of themselves financially and also to allow to fully integrate into the society that we live in."

Shantha de Silva, director of operations at IHG and general manager at InterContinental Singapore, said: "Across the hotels, we have about 80 persons with disabilities employed. We started our journey about 20 years ago with the first PWD (person with disability) who worked for us. For us, it doesn't make a difference whether it is persons with disabilities or persons with abilities who form part of our workforce.

"We invest in training them and giving them the skills necessary to be employable and once they are trained, they actually work as equals among the workforce and it is part of our objective to support sustainability in society to keep them employed and give them long-term employment opportunities with us."

Margaret Goh's son is 19 years old and is moderately intellectually disabled. He was interning at Han's F&B and has now found a job there as a pastry trainee.

She said: "It has been a very tedious journey for the past three years trying to equip him with vocational skills and hoping for employability. He got his first pay yesterday and I think he is so happy with his money. It is not a lot but I think it gave him a great sense of self-worth."

SG Enable now operates at a new location, which is the former site of the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) at Redhill.

CNA/fa/xq