Resident of Indore, Madhya Pradesh, 29-year-old Rajesh Arya studied in a mainstream school and college. Despite being 75% visually impaired, he did not avail of any government provisions like scribe or used screen reading software due to lack of awareness. This made his growing up years difficult.
Rajesh connected with the Eyeway Helpdesk in 2019 seeking information on employment opportunities for persons with vision impairment. After completing his education, Rajesh worked for two years as a computer operator, which involved filling online forms of clients for government vacancies and partly looking at consultancy work for the company. He carried out his tasks by sitting very close to the computer in order to see the screen. After his company shut down, he applied to many places for jobs but was mostly rejected during interviews due to his vision impairment. An impairment can often lead employers to doubt people’s potential even though that might not be the case very often.
Understanding his need, the Eyeway counsellor apprised Rajesh about screen reading software that could help him carry out his task with ease. He was also given information on job reservations and scribe facility to appear for competitive exams. To prepare him for better job opportunities, he was also advised to enroll for an employability course at Enable India in Bangalore that provides computer training making candidates efficient in independent usage.
Rajesh aspires to be a software developer and wants to hire visually impaired people in his own start up. He has recently joined the training program and is very grateful to Eyeway for setting him on the right path.