প্রয়াস (Proyash)

We aim to create an online platform named প্রয়াস, Rise high, against adversities.

It will be an app, where people with special needs will get to showcase their individual skill and expertise and would be able to tutor other people with the same specialties as they possess, or even inspire or motivate someone who do not have any sort of disabilities with their stories and success while conveying the lofty message that “If we can, others can too” The goal is to give them a platform where they can showcase their talents, achievements, motivational experiences and through this, they can fetch employment opportunities too. Beneficiaries would include that people with special needs won’t be lagging behind, they would be employed, would be getting more exposure, and will not be treated as a burden, suffocated in their own world.

10% of Bangladesh’s whole population are people with special needs which amounts to 16 million. 12% of the country’s whole population below age 18 and 18% above age 18 are people with special needs.

Predominantly there are 12 types of disabilities are present among which physical disability(44.53%), visual disability(13.70%), vocal disability(7.26%) and hearing disability(2.95%) are the most common ones.

What are the problems they face?

• Absence of a platform to showcase their skills.
• Lack of training and grooming.
• Lesser chances of employment.
• No opportunities to walk head to head with the society.

Also, they often get mocked and undermined in society. Normal people, in general, don't know about their struggles and don't empathize with them enough. Some may think not having a hand/leg is a disability, but that's just the physical aspect of it. Some have hearing/visual impairment and some find it difficult to cope up with their surroundings.

That leads us to the core problem-

Lack of importance given to people with special needs and lack of awareness regarding their struggles.

We’re in our market research phase. We’ve been going to different organizations and schools who work for PWDs to know their viewpoints about this idea. We also talked to parents of PWDs and CEOs of organizations regarding the features of our app and implementation.

Here's a survey video we did-

Need Segmentation

Entertainment zone-

• Helping PWDs to come out with their talents. Emphasizing on the fact that they are differently abled.

Tutorial zone-

• Learning platform for PWDs conducted by instructors who themselves are PWDs.

CV Screening zone-

• Different organizations can hire PWDs with the right skill-set as there would be a vast collection of CVs of them.

As we have already mentioned, there are 16 million PWDs in our country and Bangladesh, being a third world country, we just can't progress leaving this huge population behind. So, here's our solution-

We'll have this app Proyash, where there'll be 3 segments that would predominantly function to empower PWDs-

Entertainment zone-

• PWDs will be showcasing their talents (music, art, acting, sports, dancing)
• Sharing stories that depict their own struggles and happiness

Tutorial platform-

• Sign language tutorials, braille tutorials for PWDs
• Life hacks for rising above their own adversities
• Counselling and advising support

CV Screening zone-

• CV’s of the PWDs will be showcased here, so that organizations who want expertise that match with a particular person with disabilities can easily hire them.
• Generalizing the employment of people with special needs
• Conglomeration of non-profit and profit organizations.
• Serving  with non-biased opportunities of work the person deserve regardless of disabilities

Implementation

We will implement our idea in four phases: Awareness>Engagement>Retention>Expansion

Awareness-

• A talent hunt program
• Emotional and engaging TVC
• YouTube documentary series
• Social Media Marketing

Engagement-

• Training & Recruiting
• Continuation of documentary series
• LinkedIn marketing to connect with business organizations

Retention-

• User satisfaction
• Working on recommendation
• Ensuring convenient service

Expansion-

• Reaching out to different demographic areas in Bangladesh
• Continuation of recruitment process
• Expanding our network
• Reaching out to global stage

The biggest ironies that made our heart sink was-

• PWDs do not have any platform to showcase their expertise, perhaps a CV screening platform so that organizations who want to hire PWDs, can find them easily
• Neither do they have a learning platform that can help them learn, despite the disabilities they have, in accordance with their special needs. (e.g the method of education for blind and deaf people is different from others)

Since we're in our market research phase, we go to places to collect data & what we've seen that these people (PWDs) are enthusiastic. They have the hunger to do well & to have a better life. But, the problem lies in finding support. The family support that they get is only 40-45%, not enough at all. And the social support that they get is only 20-25%, pretty low. But shouldn't it be the other way around?

During our market research, we've shared our idea with different sectors of people including common people, pwds, their parents, heads of organizations etc. and these are some of their remarks. We can gladly say that most of their feedback were positive and this indicates that this is an idea worth chasing. 

We currently have a 10 years plan.

In our first operating year, we want to operate only in Dhaka, we hope to directly impact 12,500 people.

In the next five years, our prime target is to reach all over the country both rural and urban areas. In each year we'll try to reach at least 2 divisions. After covering all the demographic areas of Bangladesh, we plan to expand our business in the global stage since this kind of platform is not available all over the country.

Expansion! Expansion! Expansion!

Our basic idea is to pave the way for all those with special needs, and we start the steps by launching an app. We want to build our own website; a YouTube channel, to reach out to more people about them, and it’s all for them. We wish to expand our project all over Bangladesh, helping all the PWDs in need, and who knows, if we get desired success, we may even cross the country’s horizon and go global! We would like to recall what Stephen Hawking had said- "It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven't done badly. People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining." That’s the dream for now. To relieve the ones with special needs from their frustration, to emancipate them from the suffocation society puts them in.

Talking about our barriers, the socials stigma regarding the common perception that PWDs aren't capable enough is the biggest of them all. Since this platform will be the first of its kind, financially we need sufficient money in order to execute our plans. Our first year operational cost has been included below in the picture-

Cultural barriers would be to generalize/mainstream these people, since society still holds wrong perception about them.

Rather than a barrier, technology will be bliss for us since it would help us immensely to connect with them.

"The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it" - Moliere.

We believe in this ideology. Our app and features will showcase that PWDs have their own diverse potentials. One maybe visually impaired but might be a very good singer. One might be physically challenged but she might be a extremely good painter. In our entertainment zone, we'll be focusing on how they are differently abled and that will help break the social stigma surrounding them. 

Also talking about financial barriers, we've our sources of revenue also. A picture of our revenue stream is attached below-

Currently we're in our market research phase. But when we'll go into the operation, we'll have a core group of 12 people presumably who have different skill-sets. They would help our instructors (tutorial zone) and performers (entertainment zone) to make hazard-free videos.

Our team consists of two founders and one research adviser. 

The two of us are university going students and we're in Jahangirnagar University. One is from IBA and other is from Economics. So, we do have our fair-share of business and marketing knowledge to mainstream the PWDs. Also we've a good network outside to work on our operational plan. 

Our research adviser is a Dhaka University, IER (Institute of Education and Research) graduate, who has been working on this field for four years.

So, we have all grounds covered.

Since we're not in the market, we don't have any partners right. But once we're in, we've plans to partner with organizations who share the same brand persona as us.

Our target group, in terms of their psychographics (what they want) and how we're creating value among them catering to those needs are explained below in the picture-

Since we already talked about our features, our business will generate revenue through a Freemium model.

The entertainment zone will be free for all.

In the tutorial zone, some basic videos will be free. but advanced learning/training videos will have a subscription fee (BDT 300/year)

The CV screening zone will be our premium feature for business organizations. So, any company fetching/looking for CVs regularly will need to pay BDT 3300/year.

Since the barrier lies in the social stigma, society's wrong perception about these people that they are not worthy enough, Tiger IT Foundation can be huge platform for us to address this issue, also we need technological support for which we couldn't think of a better platform than this. The money aspect does come to play also.

So we want to partner with organizations or brands who share the same ideologies with us this includes- Robi, Aarong, Square pharmaceuticals etc. We would clarify that with examples-

Talking about Robi, their brand tag features জ্বলে উঠুন আপন শক্তিতে. Now knowingly or unknowningly this actually resembles our message what we intend to do with the PWDs. If we talk about Aarong also, they have their outlets of clothing. One of our major plans includes, might sound fancy here, we want to organize fashion shows, cultural nights with PWDs, where they will wear Aarong clothes thus we can promote Aarong also. But more than anything, these would work to empower these PWDs. Just think people are actually buying tickets to watch PWDs perform. How amazing and empowering that would be.