We four marched into Cognizant with some trepidations...
We were going to make a presentation about "stammering in workplace", in one of the biggest IT companies in India. Sachin had literally tricked Francin into coming and talking. Vishal, an old hand was there as back up support. About forty participants gathered. So, we began with a video clip 'Sssstutter', then sachin shared his "secret life" and the lessons to be learnt from it. Next Keith talked about how a PWS in denial is short-changing himself and his employer. His or her complete potential is not coming forward.
Next Vishal shared about Chennai Self help group, its activities and how it brought a big change in his own life. In this case, 'help was literally just a phone call away'. But it took a superhuman courage to make that phone call. Subsequent journey was easy in comparison. Francin Prabhu also talked about issue of stammering in IT workplace- how it affects our day to day work (overseas call for example), potential for more challenging roles. A question answer session followed. Many people in audience asked deeply relevant questions. There were women participants and one of them did have a question- after some encouragement. A small beginning.
We have suggested that if there are enough participants, Cognizant Cares should consider starting a Self Help group on their own campus; if not, the inidividuals could join the Chennai SHG, which meets at YWCA fortnightly. We also invited the participants to the Sunday conference at YWCA (20th Feb.), beginning 3 pm. The cooperation of Cognizant HR wing was excellent. TISA thanks Raja for organizing everything extremely well (even if remotely).
2 comments:
First it was Infosys, Pune and now Cognizant Chennai.... TISA is doing a great deal of good work into spreading awareness about Stammering and Self-help...
The two words "thank-you" fall too short to thank and acknowledge the work TISA is doing....
Finally, corporates are waking upto the intricacies of human shortcomings.
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