Promoting the dignity of disabled people with a focus on increasing their numbers in the work force is the mission of a burgeoning committee.
The Mayor's Committee for Employment of People with Disabilities is a vision that began with a 2006 meeting between Orangeburg Mayor Paul Miller, retired university professor Dr. Eddie Glenn Bryant and Shirley Madison, coordinator of the Orientation and Mobility Program at South Carolina State University.
Bryant said equitable access to employment opportunities for qualified persons having physical, mental, sensory or cognitive disabilities is the goal of the nonprofit committee, which seeks to encourage employers in the city of Orangeburg to hire people with disabilities.
Bryant hopes the committee will grow to seven or nine members. The initial meeting during which a chairperson will be elected will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 11, at the Orangeburg County Chamber of Commerce.
"This is an advocacy group that comes under the mayor's auspices as an ex-officio, at-large member. The chairman will serve as a liaison between the mayor and the committee and the community," she said.
The mayor's committee falls under the (South Carolina) Governor's Committee for Employment of People with Disabilities, which falls under the President's Committee for Employment of People with Disabilities, Bryant said of the committee's three-tier construction.
The governor's committee works cooperatively with a network of existing mayor's committees in Anderson, Columbia, Greenville, Spartanburg, Summerville/Charleston and Sumter.
"The mayor's committee works more on the local level with the immediate community to inform businesses and agencies -- small, large, public and private -- to learn more about people with disabilities so that they will have information to determine whether or not the person has qualifications for employment," she said.
The committee will also work with the Orangeburg County Disabilities and Special Needs Board and the S.C. Vocational Rehabilitation Department's Orangeburg office, where disabled individuals are given job-readiness skills.
"Counselors are given to them, and they try to broker employment for them. We work with them and all of the entities in the communities to increase the probability of more persons with disabilities being hired. We provide research-based information. Persons who are qualified with disabilities have higher attendance rates, stay on the job longer, have higher productivity and their injuries are less," Bryant said. "We have a good track record if individuals are properly trained and exposed to job readiness, job training, employment skills and knowledge."
Employers often have unwarranted fears about hiring disabled individuals, including the fear of escalated insurance and operational costs or having to have more supervision over them, she said, but "there are a lot of things we can do to make facilities accessible and meet federal accommodations with spending little or no money."
Mayor Miller said while his mayoral duties will limit the time he spends working with the committee, it has an outstanding concept.
"I think that people with disabilities certainly should be entitled to seek employment.I would hope that this committee would raise the awareness in our community. There are people with disabilities that can certainly perform tasks for companies," Miller said.
The development of academic scholarships for disabled students; a focus on transportation and housing issues for disabled individuals; an annual Employment, Education and Resources Fair; workshops and grant writing are included in the committee's future goals. An Employment Recognition Luncheon will honor employers, the achievements of disabled employees and disabled students who make community contributions and have achieved academic success.
"We're going to try to do a variety of things, and we want to do it in a diplomatic way. We will have something yearly to keep awareness of persons with disabilities and our work with partners in the forefront. Knowledge is power," she said.
Interested individuals who wish to learn more about the committee or how they can participate, can contact Dr. Shirley Madison at SCSU at 803-533-3956 or Dr. Eddie Glenn Bryant at 803-779-2732.
T&D Staff Writer Dionne Gleaton can be reached by e-mail at dgleaton@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5534. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.