Hundreds of job seekers packed the two-day inclusive job fair, “Job & Innovation Fair for Diversability 2019”, jointly held by the ILO in collaboration with Difalink (formerly known as Diffago) and Dare Foundation—organizations deal with disability issues. The job fair was also supported by the Atma Jaya Catholic University.

Bayu was one of the job seekers, eagerly looking for jobs. He traveled from Cilegon, Banten with the hope to find a job. “This is my first time looking for a job at the job fair. Please pray for me,” he told when visiting the ILO booth using a sign language.

He then went around the Hall C of the Atma Jaya University, accompanied by a sign language interpreter visiting 18 companies and five start-ups/social enterprises participating in the job fair. The participating companies were from hospitality, banking, retail and manufacturing sectors; while the start-ups covered food and beverage, tourism and service sectors.

Orisa Pradito also shared the same hope as Bayu. A fresh graduate from one of the leading universities in the country, he was enthusiastic to find a job. “I am a person with autism but I am talented. I hope to find a job to support my family,” he wrote, expressing his hope on the ILO’s wishing tree.

To interactively engage with and capture the opinions of the participants of the job fair, the ILO set up a wishing tree where all participants could express their hopes and opinions about the importance of inclusive world of work.

Other expressed opinions included “Support to the inclusive world of work should come from you”, “Employing a blind person is not expensive”, “Working is everybody’s right” and “The inclusive world of work should uphold the right of people with disabilities to employment by considering the levels of disabilities.”

The job fair aimed to build a connectivity between job seekers with disabilities and companies, including various start-up companies that have supported disability issues. One of the participating companies was Precious One, a social company employing and supporting workers with disabilities and channeling products produced by people with disabilities.

“We make the best use of the existing digital shops to market services and products from people with disabilities. Through this job fair, we hope that more people will be more aware about us so that we can expand our markets, improve our services and employ more workers with disabilities,” stated Mardea Mumpuni, Digital & Marketing Collaboration of Precious One.

Tendy Gunawan, the ILO’s Programme Officer for Equal Opportunity for Disability, highlighted the importance of connectivity between companies and workers with disabilities. “Many companies are still not aware of benefits employing people with disabilities. Through this job fair, it is hoped that we can start providing equal employment opportunity so that they can work based on their passions, interests and talents,” said Tendy.

Meanwhile, Ni Komang Ayu Suriani, Founder and CEO of Diffago, called for the active involvement of all parties, including the public at large, to continuously promote inclusivity in the world of work. “Decent wok is the central of everybody’s lives, including people with disabilities. Let’s together support inclusive world of work in Indonesia,” she exclaimed.

People with disabilities still face enormous attitudinal, physical and informational barriers to equal opportunities in the world of work. The 2017 ILO data revealed that out of 22 million people with disabilities in Indonesia, around 13 million still face difficulties in finding decent jobs compared to other non-disabled workers. People with disabilities tend to work in the informal economy.