Transforming Lives through Diversity, Equity and Inclusion: Neelam Jain
“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity”
The 27-year-old ambitious and most emphatic personality Neelam Jain follows a great quote by Nelson Mandela on humanity and human rights. With an incredible vision, Neelam founded the company PeriFerry in the year 2017. It aims to normalize the LGBT community and make the world a better place for them to live in. PeriFerry works on creating employment and upskilling opportunities for the transgender community.
Neelam got the inspiration to build LGBTQ inclusion at the workplace from one of her employees. She quit her job and started PeriFerry. “Our name comes from the word ‘periphery’ — meaning the edge. We use this word to refer to those who have been pushed to the fringes of the society and how we as facilitators could ferry them to their desired destinations,” says Jain.
Although there are organizations that uplift the transgender community, it still leaves much to be desired. Normalizing LGBT was a tough challenge for Neelam but through her dedication and hard work, she along with her team sensitized over 22000 corporate Indian employers and has established jobs for over 180 transgender individuals.
“A major portion of the trans community earned their living through begging and/or sex work. Social stigma and prevalent discrimination made it extremely difficult for them to access comprehensive corporate training and pursue mainstream careers. Even those at the workplace lived in fear of losing the job in case their identity was discovered,” she says.
The socio-economic issues of the trans community versus the rest of the LGBTQ+ community are very different. A lesbian, gay, queer person can find access to jobs and education, but the trans community’s issue is amplified. They get thrown out of their families at a young age, don’t get access to basic jobs, and even if they do, they get teased.
In the closely-knit trans community, it has been a journey of word of mouth for PeriFerry that for months went by without any job applications on its website, and “then suddenly, a bunch of them spoke about us and every week we started getting 10 to 20 applications”, recalls Jain. “We feel that as a community and their rights, we are making progress at a very steady rate. Collaboration between the government and organizations that work on this is extremely crucial if we want to reach the masses and understand in-depth surrounding the challenges faced by the community. This will also help us arrive at solutions.”
Her inspiring work has also given way to her being a TedX speaker, a LinkedIn’s Top Influencer 2021, and more recently, being featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
Jain’s goal three years ago was to generate jobs for transgender people. She had no idea that the entire journey would become an adventure in and of itself. “We may not always be cognizant of the mysteries of the universe,” Jain adds, “but what we can do in our life is to give, to become more compassionate, and to be nice to another being.” With the goal of shaping a future that accepts individuals for who they are, Jain believes that solving these issues would not necessitate the work of an organization like Periferry.
Written by : Sahil and Sakshi
