President’s Volunteer Service Award

 

David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, delivered the keynote address at the Michigan Rehabilitation Conference, on Oct. 24, 2007 at DeVos Place in Grand Rapids. Eisner presented a President’s Volunteer Service Award to Antoinette Adkins, 26, a second-year member of Downriver CARES AmeriCorps at The Guidance Center in Southgate, Mich. Adkins, who is both hearing impaired and visually impaired, serves adults with various severe mental illnesses. Teaching them life skills has spurred her desire to obtain a Ph.D.

 

2007 Secretary of Labor’s New Freedom Initiative Award

http://www.dol.gov/odep/newfreedom/2007nfi.htm

 

On October 24, the Secretary Elaine L. Chao presented the award to six honorees in Washington, DC.

 

The Dow Chemical Company

Midland, Michigan

 

Values at Work: Delivering on commitment to an inclusive workforce

 

Through corporate-wide commitment to inclusion of individuals with disabilities, The Dow Chemical Company gains a competitive edge in attracting top talent to its 43,000-strong worldwide workforce. By using cutting-edge technology, a Dow employee who is paralyzed works from a virtual office in Singapore, while a colleague in Brazil who is blind is honored for authoring a Braille computer manual.

 

The Dow Chemical Company affirms this commitment in its Global Position Statement on People with Disabilities, which declares that people with disabilities are “a unique source of talent who can deliver substantial value to our company, our customers and our communities.” Helping to put this philosophy into practice is Dow’s company-wide Disability Employment Network (DEN), comprised of employees with disabilities, employees parenting a child with a disability, and others interested in advancing disability employment issues.

 

Dow is also looking ahead to ensure an inclusive future workforce by participating in Disability Mentoring Day and sponsoring the Michigan Youth Leadership Forum, which offers career training for high school students with disabilities. In 2005, the company initiated a program to recruit summer interns with disabilities. It was so successful that Dow expanded the effort by training 30 recruiters, tripling the number of interns, and gaining valuable knowledge with wider application to full-time opportunities throughout the company.

 

DiverseAbility LLC congratulates Antoinette Adkins for her achievements.

 

DiverseAbility thanks Michigan’s AmeriCorps and The Dow Chemical Company

for their partnerships to develop career opportunities for people with disabilities