Thums Up and being human launch campaign veer'

Living up to its toofani message of unleashing the potential within, India’s most iconic brand Thums Upand Salman Khan’s Being Human Foundation, in association with the American India Foundation (AIF),today brought their collaborative initiative Campaign VEER to Gurgaon. VEER –Unleashing the Inner Potential of Persons with Disabilities – was launched in the country earlier this year. With the aim of reaching more than 1000 PwDs with skill training and employment opportunities, the campaign was today officially launched in Gurgaon with the first batch of hearing-impaired people who will be trained under the campaign, in association with NGO SNS Foundation.

The batch will be provided training in basic communication skills, computer skills and soft kills, amongst other to enhance employability and offered placement opportunities once the course ends. One of the tenets of the campaign is to raise advocacy on issues revolving around inclusiveness, employability of PwDs and workplace accessibility. Taking this forward, the event held today also witnessed a panel discussion on “Being An Inclusive Employer” - Discussing Inclusion at Workplace - Strategies, Challenges and Solutions.

Speaking about the initiative, Debabrata Mukherjee, VP-Marketing & Commercial, Coca-Cola India said, “We launched campaign VEER to take forward Thums Up’s philosophy of ‘unleashing the potential within’. There is a clear need in the country to bring specially-abled people into the mainstream and this requires a major change in mindset. This is what we are doing with VEER. It gives me great pleasure to welcome the first batch of people in Gurgaon to benefit under the campaign. I would like to thank our partners Being Human, AIF and SNS Foundation for all their support.”

M.A. Ravi Kumar, CEO of the American India Foundation said, “At the American India Foundation, we have been looking at the whole livelihood space for the last 8 years to make such people financially independent. We are delighted at the success this Veer campaign has had thus far, and are grateful to Thums Up, Being Human, and the SNS Foundation for their support. People with disabilities have the talent to pursue meaningful careers and play a role in India’s economic success. We look forward to employers who come forward to help the differently-abled join the engines that are driving our country’s economic growth.”

Speaking about the campaign, Alvira Agnihotri, Trustee, Being Human– The Salman Khan Foundation said “Today we bring the Veer campaign to Gurgaon. We’d like to thank all our partners who have played an integral part in making this campaign successful.”

Campaign VEER aims to address challenges such as inclusive education and employment, skill training and development, and advocating for disabled-friendly technology. With the support of AIF, the campaign is working at imparting vocational training to these individuals and ascertain their requirements so that they can be made job-ready. As outlined by AIF, INR 7,500 is all it takes to train an individual with disability to make him/her employable.