Being Inclusive: Understanding Diversity and Strategies for Inclusion

Being inclusive is a very broad term. To be inclusive we need to understand diversity. In this article, we will understand diversity and inclusion and we will see how these two topics are important, interconnected, and interdependent.

In this picture all the people are of different background: one person has down’s syndrome, one has an intellectual impairment, and two persons are speech and hearing impaired. 
Pic courtesy: Muskaan-PAEPID

The diversity around us impacts us in many ways. Most of the time we are unaware of it. We live in a diverse world but we hardly acknowledge and understand it. We need to think of the people who are different in any way.
There are at least 34 types of diverse groups/people that are listed in many definitions.

All these diverse groups do have subcategories within them. For example: if we look at disability, In India 21 types of disability are listed.

Disability is the most difficult diversity to work with because it has so many types and combinations. We need to work on our understanding of whatever disability we are working with.

According to UNCRPD Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual, or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others (UNCRPD, 2006, p. 4).

Given the UNCRPD definition, we need to think of ways to overcome the difficulty because of whatever barriers a person is facing which is resulting in disability. Just take an example of a person in a mall, shopping on the 3^rd or fourth floor, and suddenly, he gets his feet twisted and now he is unable to walk down. Then he found out that the lift of that mall is not functioning and now he is in a fix. The person is not able to come down as his ankle is injured. Is he disabled? No. Now change the scenario and his condition is the same but the lift of that particular building is working and the people over there are co-operative and facilitated him to come down.

So, what happened in the first scenario was the person was not able to do what he needed to in the second scenario the person can do what was needed to do with no overwhelming responses or feeling dejected or ashamed. No person in the world is born disabled but it's we or the environment we create, that makes them disabled. Disability never lies in any person rather it lies in our attitude, physical environment, knowledge, and the way we think and do things.

There’s a saying in Muskaan: “Disability is a social construct, nature has only diversity” so if we respect nature, we must respect diversity.   

Each type of disability has several subcategories.  Each disability type has its own spectrum. For example: if we take developmental disability 

Courtesy: Muskaan-PAEPID

Under this intellectual impairment, Autism, Cerebral palsy, Attention deficit and hyperactivity, Asperger Syndrome, Down Syndrome, and the list are long. Each of the conditions has different needs and their style of learning and operating in a different environment is different from each other.

If we think about sensory impairment again, we have many types: hearing impairment, vision impairment, etc, and these also have degrees of impairment and impact.

Physical impairment has a long list of impairments and impacts on the person. All kinds of impairment require a different kind of facility and management program. 

Many times, more than one disability is present in a person which makes their inclusion more difficult than anyone else. It is the story of some categories, there are many others.   

The most important thing in a person is not what disability they have but rather the fact that they are human beings. When I meet families and many others, they don’t even recognize their presence and use offensive words and language right in front of PWDs. The first thing we need to do is acknowledge each person for who they are, rather than thinking or identifying their condition. Without diversity or differences, no environment is complete.

Humans are inherently different, however, when these differences become a hurdle to overcome because the existing system favors’ a certain kind of ability or group, and instead of accepting the diversity and working on creating an inclusive environment, where people belonging from any group are allowed to have a good life and contribute to the society, they are marginalized and excluded. Then we do a disservice to everyone. So, how can we harness this greatest beauty of society and bring out the best of it?

In this article we will discuss two examples, one is from the disability field and another example is of an organization that works for other diverse groups. The first example is MUSKAAN-PAEPID. Let us see how Muskaan overcame this and how beautifully their students are included in their environment.

•  It is a general perception that Persons with Intellectual impairment cannot learn or work.

•  In most environments, they are not even considered an adult so thinking about their gainful employment is still a distant dream.   

•  So far, Muskaan has Placed 50+ persons in mainstream employment and 300+ people in alternate employment. It seems to be a small number but for intellectual disabilities, this is a big achievement for the organization.

Please watch the following video. It will give a wide understanding of how persons with intellectual impairment are working in a different model of employment created and supported by Muskaan-PAEPID.  

This video is the fruit of the efforts that Muskaan undertook to train and empower its students as well as facilitate the employers in making an environment that was conducive and supportive of the inclusion of PWIDs.

So, the question is how did Muskaan achieve this? Let's understand what worked here.  

Muskaan enhanced its familiarity with the strengths and capacities of the students. It gradually raised the bar through training and the opportunity to be involved in various activities, discussions, self-advocacy, events and presentations, visits to different places, outstation tours, organizing employment engagement programs with many corporates, giving them training on how to do simple things and how to be patient (in this area, no one in the world can beat our students). It helped Team Muskaan to be aware of the immense capability of the students and then we started working on awareness building for the larger society.

It is a general practice in Muskaan that nothing for us, without us. So, we were forced to think about the ways to include our students in each area, whatever we were doing. This helped our students to enhance their self-esteem and become confident enough to present themselves in any forum.

We always tried to pull them up whenever they were in power-down situations, by showcasing their strengths to the larger community. The greatest advocate of their strength were the products they were making and the skills they know- dance music, craft, painting, pottery, and other art forms. 

Muskaan is frequented by visitors and our students explain to them what they do. This practice brought out the awareness of their strength and when they were speaking about themselves the impact was enormous.

When Muskaan started working in mainstream employment the first thing we did was make them familiar and aware of our student’s strengths, capacities, and limitations too. We worked on their understanding of intellectual disability. We facilitated them to make their work environment inclusive.

Courtesy: Muskaan-PAEPID

When we placed our students over there, we were present to facilitate our trainees and their trainers. We also worked with our students to make them aware of other diversity present in the environment. For example, in the Lemon Tree Hotel, persons with autism, speech and hearing disability, and physical impairment work together. It helped to enhance mutual respect, new learning, and skill-building. When we placed our first batch in the Lemon Tree we were pleasantly surprised after 4-5 months, our students learned basic sign language because they wanted to converse with their colleagues with speech and hearing impairments. It was a big leap. PWIDs have difficulty in learning new things, they need structure and patient training to learn. But since they had the motivation and they wanted to be with them, have fun and be part of the group, so they put in the effort and observed them and practiced the signs. The most important thing was they were not judged for the mistakes they made in the journey of self-learning. 

We needed to address the limitations also. So, we asked to accommodate our students' need to have specific work hours. We worked on their accommodation in only two shifts. Working during night shifts disturbs their circadian clock. The majority of our students need more time to recuperate from the fatigue and be ready for the next day's work.  We asked to remove the billing part which required critical decisions and higher cognitive functions, instead, asked to add some concrete manual work to their duty list. We saw exchange in duties between PWIDs and those without it. They were included and given the lead in some recreational activities during the celebrations and different events in the workspace. Now they are called HAPPY PEOPLE. With constant input and support from Muskaan, they proved to be very diligent workers in their workplace. 

Now we go on to the second example: Grameen Foundation India (How an organization ensured inclusion in its environment).  

Grameen Foundation is a global leader in financial inclusion and has been working with the poorest communities, especially women around the world on access to finance, sustainable livelihoods, and health and nutrition.

Grameen Foundation is a pioneer in leveraging technology for social good. By combining digital technology with deep insights into the lives of low-income people especially women and the human-centered design process, Grameen creates solutions that are scalable and create sustainable impact.

Grameen uses the power of mobile technology to connect people to formal financial services and work with women’s groups. Working closely with microfinance institutions, banks, and agribusinesses, help people build assets, weather crisis, manage risk and become resilient.

When I was talking with the CEO of Grameen Foundation India, Mr. Prabhat Labh, and asked about the inclusion practices followed by the GFI.

He was very loud and clear in talking about the ways his organization is following inclusion practices.

The first thing was to have a set of rules which are fair to everyone and facilitate the inclusive growth of all the employees.

Providing equal opportunity to take lead in different forums and projects, sometimes being careful about the people who are not coming forward or left behind for any reason.  

Provide a clear job description so that by default people take responsibility and get recognition for their work.

Providing a flexible work environment so that the diverse need of different people can be accommodated. Grameen employees are known as Grameen Mitra's work in diverse areas. Very remotes villages where women are always busy with household work, rearing children, working on their farms, processing the farm yields, getting it ready for the market or home use, taking care of the livestock of their farm, and so on. So, it is very important to be aware of their available time when Grameen Mitras can approach them and guide them to handle their finances through their mobile phones. They need to empower them to take the finances into their own hands and how plan for the future. So having flexible time is extremely important. In their office environment also, they try to accommodate the needs of the people and make it more people-oriented.   

Identify the power up and power down situations – if some of the employees are getting the limelight on most occasions then it is time to be aware of why others are not coming forward.

It may require having a close conversation about it with the team or with that particular employee. It depends on the person and situation.  

Deliberately give them the lead on some formal or informal occasions.

If a person is new in the organization, then attaching them to a buddy or assigning a mentor for the person to ensure the familiarity and smooth induction of the employee formally as well as in informal ways.

Recognition and acknowledgment are great ways to promote inclusion. Grameen has a system of giving an award every quarter.  They have a set of 15 core competencies listed for the employee's development and, out of these 15 competencies, they choose three competencies for a year and then evaluate the employees on these three parameters. For example, for the years 2020-21 they are focusing on:

“Working with ambiguity, tenacity to overcome obstacles, and being solution-oriented”

These awards are given in two categories:

Through employee voting and is called the popular choice award, for these category two awards are there, one is open to all the staff and another is especially for the field staff since they work in remote areas and they remain in the background.

Employees choose the best performing staff by evaluating the awardee on the parameters decided for the year and by voting the awardee is chosen. Or the person who had taken the remarkable initiative in their work.  

The second is the jury special award where leadership and a committee of staff together evaluate the nominations on the parameters decided for the year. Then they choose the winner for the quarter.

These kinds of practices promote the participation of all the staff members, motivate them and facilitate them to take initiative and be inclusive.

One more thing he stressed upon that talking and reminding the vision and mission of the organization keeps the focus in place and they constantly work towards cumulative growth. 

So, we had seen two perspectives to promote an inclusive environment.

In a nutshell, the roadmap/ process of inclusion includes:

1.     Work on mutual awareness- enhance the knowledge about self and get the knowledge about the people around you.

2.     Acknowledge the diversity- I am different and so are you.

3.    Identify and acknowledge the need.

4.   Accept the differences and find out the reasons if any person is not coming forward or is inhibited.

5.   Try to find an equitable environment so that everyone can flourish.

6.  Try to remove the barriers which hamper learning, work, and communication. Provide or create the opportunity to showcase the skills beyond work among the team- it strengthens the bond.

So, inclusion is the achievement of a work environment in which all individuals are treated fairly, respectfully, and have equal and equitable access to opportunities and resources, so that they can contribute fully to the organization’s success.

IN CONCLUSION 

Now a bit about myself. I am Abha Karn from Delhi, India. I am a development professional with 24 years of work experience with leading NGOs and organizations. My core competencies include Disability rights, Inclusion, Livelihood, Youth empowerment, and Skill Development. I have a master's in Applied Psychology. I am associated with American Express Academy since 2013, which was held in New Delhi.

Abha Karn, Assistant Director, Muskaan-PAEPID, has 24 years of experience working in the field of Developmental Disability Developmental Disability 

Through my work for persons with disabilities and employment, I have impacted over 500 persons with Developmental disability and their families. I have also impacted over 2000 people through advocacy and awareness. I work extensively with school and college students, and professionals from the corporate world.

Currently, I am working as Assistant Director with Muskaan-Parents Association for the Empowerment of Persons with Intellectual disability, a leading organization working for the training and employment of Persons with Intellectual disabilities.