Standard Chartered Bank held another round of mentorship sessions for persons with disabilities last week, part of an ongoing effort to transform employability training from abstract skills workshops into concrete career pathways through direct professional guidance.
The session at the bank’s Accra headquarters brought participants in the Ready for Inclusive Sustainable Employment and Entrepreneurship programme face to face with mentors who walked them through interview preparation, from what to wear to how to answer behavioral questions that trip up even experienced candidates. Breakout groups followed, letting participants discuss their specific career goals with seasoned professionals who’ve navigated corporate environments that weren’t always designed with accessibility in mind.
The programme, delivered in partnership with Sightsavers Ghana, targets young entrepreneurs and job seekers, with particular emphasis on women and persons with disabilities. It’s part of Standard Chartered’s broader Futuremakers initiative, funded by the Standard Chartered Foundation with a commitment of 650,000 dollars over three years. The money, converted to cedis at prevailing exchange rates, supports both skills development and entrepreneurship components across multiple cohorts.
RISE/E distinguishes itself through structure that extends beyond one off training sessions. Participants engage in three month cohorts with assigned mentors from various bank departments who provide ongoing guidance, assign practical tasks, and offer feedback on real world applications. The model attempts to address a common gap in employability programmes, where people gain theoretical knowledge but struggle to translate it into actual job offers or business growth.
Standard Chartered’s track record on disability inclusion includes hosting a two day Career Fair last year that connected more than 60 PWD candidates and 20 entrepreneurs with employers committed to inclusive hiring practices. Participants received training in CV writing, personal branding, and interview techniques, though data on how many actually secured employment afterward wasn’t provided. The bank also chairs the Ghana Business and Disability Network, through which it champions Career Connect workshops offering tailored career guidance and placement opportunities.
PWD entrepreneurs have accessed support through entrepreneurship fairs that create platforms to showcase and sell products, addressing a persistent challenge where disabled business owners struggle to reach customers beyond their immediate networks. The bank represented Ghana at the International Labour Organisation’s Global Business and Disability Network Conference in Geneva in 2024, following its election as the inaugural chair of the Ghana BDN, positioning itself as a regional leader on these issues.
Asiedua Addae, Head of Corporate Affairs, Brand and Marketing at Standard Chartered, has emphasized that the bank aims to nurture skills that make participants not just job seekers but future leaders and business owners. That’s an ambitious goal, considering Ghana’s overall unemployment rate hovers around 14 percent, with disability status often compounding job search difficulties due to accessibility barriers, employer misconceptions, and limited workplace accommodations.
The programme will run in cohorts, with participants from various disability categories including visual, hearing, physical, and intellectual impairments. Digital, financial, and marketing skills form the core curriculum, responding to market demands but also reflecting what can be taught within three month cycles. Whether that timeline proves sufficient for participants to become genuinely job ready depends on their baseline skills, the depth of mentorship relationships, and employer willingness to hire beyond stated diversity commitments.
David Agyemang, President of Sightsavers Ghana, praised Standard Chartered for investing in the potential of persons with disabilities and creating avenues for economic independence. Sightsavers brings experience implementing employability training, having graduated 45 young PWDs from similar programmes in March 2025, though the organization also noted ongoing challenges convincing employers that disability inclusion represents business opportunity rather than charity.
The three year RISE/E project targets over 200 direct beneficiaries, with and without disabilities, aiming to create more than 140 jobs through supported microbusinesses. The skills development component focuses entirely on persons with disabilities, with half the slots reserved for women. The entrepreneurship track splits evenly between disabled and non disabled participants, but requires that 50 percent of supported businesses be women led, reflecting recognition that gender and disability create compounding barriers.
Standard Chartered launched RISE/E in June 2024 as part of its Futuremakers commitment to economic inclusion for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. The bank positions this work within its corporate responsibility portfolio, though critics sometimes question whether such programmes primarily serve reputational benefits or generate measurable impact on systemic employment barriers facing PWDs. The bank hasn’t released comprehensive data showing employment rates or business survival metrics for previous cohorts, making it difficult to assess outcomes beyond participation numbers.
Ghana’s Persons with Disability Act, 2006 (Act 715) mandates that at least five percent of public sector positions be reserved for PWDs, but enforcement remains weak and private sector compliance is essentially voluntary. Standard Chartered’s voluntary commitments exceed legal minimums, operating in an environment where many employers avoid hiring PWDs entirely, citing concerns about accommodation costs or productivity that disability rights advocates characterize as unfounded bias.
The bank’s call for other corporate organizations to prioritize inclusive skills development acknowledges that no single institution can address Ghana’s disability employment gap. Labour force surveys consistently show PWDs face unemployment rates roughly double those of persons without disabilities, concentrated in informal sector work with limited protections or advancement opportunities. Mentorship programmes like RISE/E can help individual participants navigate job markets, but structural changes in employer attitudes, workplace accessibility, and enforcement of existing disability rights legislation would likely prove more impactful at scale.
For participants in last week’s sessions, the immediate value lies in practical guidance from professionals who’ve succeeded in competitive environments. Whether that translates into job offers or sustainable businesses over coming months will test the programme’s design and the broader labor market’s receptivity to inclusive hiring. The three month cohort model allows for iteration based on what works, assuming the bank collects rigorous outcome data and adjusts accordingly rather than simply cycling through new participant groups.
