When non-cooperation from colleagues and harassment from students forced Dr. Manabi Bandopadhyay to resign from her principal designation, it became evident that the career progression or employment of a transgender in India is abysmal.
Manabi is educated but yet she had to bear society’s jibes on sexuality that forced her to resign, now imagine the plight of those transgenders in India who are devoid of basic formal education, and are left to become either beggars or drawn into the dark world of prostitution for survival.
According to an economics professor, Lee Badgett from the University of Massachusetts India has been losing as much as 1.4 percent of its national output because of the discriminatory law Section 377.
After lifting the ban 158-year-old colonial law that decriminalised same-gender relationships and denied transgender identity, several companies are opening the corporate doors for the transgender community.
A former Goldman Sachs employee Neelam Jain is helping the transgender community realise the dream of living a dignified life through her platform PeriFerry- a socially inclusive start-up that helps transgender people getting placement in organisations offering them sustainable jobs.
What Is PeriFerry?
Started by Neelam Jain in 2017 in Chennai, PeriFerry is a socially inclusive start-up that aids trans individuals get sustainable jobs in an organisation. The platform provides free essential training to the candidates in diverse skills such as soft skills, spoken English, computer fundamentals, and grooming. PeriFerry benefits transgenders by giving them employment opportunities in fields like software, HR, graphic design, accountancy, tech support, hospitality, food delivery, and makeup. Moreover, it also organises sensitisation workshops with corporates to ensure a safer and more inclusive workplace and conduct routine follow-ups for a minimum of six months to understand employee and employer satisfaction. PeriFerry’s collaboration with ANZ Bank to create a residential corporate training programme named REVIVE is helping the platform to employ multiple candidates at once, which otherwise they could just place a single individual.
‘‘
According to an economics professor, Lee Badgett from the University of Massachusetts India has been losing as much as 1.4 percent of its national output because of the discriminatory law Section 377.
Why is PeriFerry Doing this?
The transgender community has been subjected to prolonged ostracism due to the appearance that denied them jobs and kept them away from living a respectable life. Neelam Jain in a conversation with a transgender named ‘Uma’ realised the ill-treatment the individuals face that challenged their very existence as human beings in society. Observing this, Neelam sensed there are hardly any organisations for the LGBTQIA+ community that actively work towards upskilling and uplifting their socio-economic conditions.
What was the Response When PeriFerry began?
When PeriFerry began, the response was cold as the community has been exposed to years of discrimination and was exploited in so many cruel ways by different people and organisations. PeriFerry took almost 1.5 year to instill trust and build rapport with the community.
As the company plans to expand in different geographies, it will require understanding the behaviourial traits of trans communities of different regions. For instance- the trans community of north India differs in nature from the south.
What is the Response Now?
PeriFerry to date has upskilled more than 330 transgenders, employed more than 190 employees in reputed organisations like Wipro, ANZ, Bosch, Accenture, Sodexo, Bayer, and The Body Shop, etc. It has sensitised over 22000 corporates as well.
Learnings from PeriFerry
Startups like PeriFerry are one of a kind in India. While there are many players in the job provider sector, none of them have thought to address the employment needs of trans community individuals.
One of the major takeaways from PeriFerry is that it took to serve a community that people consider as inferior. Therefore, there was a high probability of this start-up failing as the social stigma ingrained in us regarding these individuals would not have welcomed their presence in the workforce. But it succeeded in bridging the gap by training the trans individuals with the right skills by doing in-depth research of the employment problems faced by these individuals and understanding the requirements of corporations.
When social start-ups like PeriFerry step ahead to upskill transgenders to make them corporate ready, it also encourages bigger organisations to believe in their competencies and hire them more.
Scope and Opportunity of Social Entrepreneurship
India is a populous country of 1.4 billion out of which many are devoid of essentials- food, access to clean water, electricity, education, and employment.
The scope of social entrepreneurship in India holds immense potential as yet a large fraction of the population in India remains unemployed and less educated. Lack of skills and training resources is what keeps them away from being employed.
A majority of start-ups in India hire only educated individuals for their business benefits where there are a few start-ups that anticipate the potential of the underserved sector by developing inspiring and innovative solutions to create a stable level of employment and change the system.
Indian government’s flagship projects like The Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) aim to foster the culture of entrepreneurship at several universities and NGOs to facilitate the birth of social start-ups or entrepreneurship to emerge as job creators at every state and sector of the country.
