The family of Rezky Yami Putri, 27, born with an imperfect three-fingered left hand half the size of a normal hand, was skeptical when she landed a job at Indonesia’s largest lender Bank Mandiri.
They thought she was deceived, because such an achievement would be too good to be true for someone with “my condition”, said Rezky, now a call center officer at the state-owned lender. Her family finally believed her job was legit when she received her first salary last year.
“Even though it has been a year, it is still like a dream for me, a lengthy dream, which occurs while I am awake,” said the Jakarta resident, who has a bachelor’s degree in public health but has never worked in her field of study.
“As someone with a disability, we are always underestimated but it turns out that we also can make money for ourselves and for our parents, even though it is not that much,” she added.
Rezky is among 41 disabled workers employed by Bank Mandiri, which is among over 100 state-owned enterprises in Indonesia, which, following a 2016 law on people with disabilities, are required to have disabled people account for at least 2 percent of their staff.
“Our target is to hire 120 people and we’ll keep recruiting depending on the availability of the applicants,” Bank Mandiri human capital engagement senior vice president Aminarti Widiati said. The lender started recruiting disabled employees last year.
Bank Mandiri, which has five branch offices in Jakarta and Semarang, Central Java, employing disabled people currently has a total of 38,376 employees nationwide with 2,505 branch offices spread across the country.
Disabled people in the lender work on three-year contracts and are reviewed each year. They also have the chance to become permanent employees, Aminarti said.
Tri Handayani, diagnosed mute when she was only 10 months old, was eager to advance at Bank Mandiri. The back-office worker used to work at a supermarket, checking and replacing price tags on products.
“This new job makes me feel more enthusiastic about working and being more successful in the future,” said Tri, who graduated
with a computerized accounting degree.
To communicate, the 27-year-old tries to speak as much as she can or writes the sentences down if they are too complicated. She is able to understand her interlocutors by reading their lips.
Her colleague Kuntum Mukminin, 24, who is also deaf-mute, works at the same division at Bank Mandiri in the back office.
“I might be deaf but I work hard and keep improving myself. I have to do my best to be a success,” said Kuntum, a high school graduate who used to work at a supermarket bakery.
The Social Affairs Ministry has pledged to oversee the implementation of the 2016 law that requires disabled people account for at least 2 percent of state firms’ staff. There are around 6 million disabled people in Indonesia, according to 2012 ministry data.
“However, we won’t impose sanctions on companies that cannot meet the minimum requirement because we know that sometimes it cannot be fulfilled because of a lack of competency,” the ministry’s director of social rehabilitation Bambang Sugeng said.