“To me, internship is the first step to get a real-life job experience and the sense of economic independence”
– Nayem Molla
Nayem Molla is a 21 years old person with physical disability. Since his birth, he was diagnosed with a rare medical condition that disabled him to flexibly move his legs and arms. Even though his family was not very affluent, they left no stones unturned to treat Nayem. But Nayem Molla’s condition did not improve.
He got admitted into school and achieved the first position in his first year of school. After that,he did not have to look back. Despite his physical disability, he never failed to amaze people with his academic excellence. Later,Nayem prepared himself for admission in Dhaka University and got selected in the department of Pali and Buddhist Studies. He struggled to adapt in the university premise as well as in hostel area due to the lack of accessibility and started to feel the absence of persons with disabilities in his surroundings which led him to feel the urge to do something about it. Then, he joined an organization called Physically Challenged Development Foundation (PDF) which works for people with disabilities. Nayem started to do advocacy on disability issues to ensure disability inclusiveness.
After many attempts to create an inclusive society, he realized that the most important aspect is the economic development of a person with disability through employment or entrepreneurship. He found out about the ULIP program of Unilever and thought that this could be a way to achieve his goals. The Inclusion Works (IW) consortium led by Sightsavers and ADD International with BBDN as a partner, came forward to support Nayem Molla and counselled him to get selected in ULIP Programme. He had to go through total five stages for selection, did excellent in all the stages and got selected for one of the biggest and most prestigious internship programmes in Bangladesh. The ULIP program can enable Nayem to gather the experience and knowledge to make the corporate sector more inclusive.
BBDN and IW consortium partners wish Nayem the very best for his future endeavours.