At ‘Silent Delivery Station’, Amazon employs disabled people in logistics
Online marketplace Amazon India today announced the launch of the first-of its-kind ‘Silent Delivery Station’ in Mumbai. The initiative is meant to bring diverse communities into the workforce.
Partnering with Mirakle Couriers which employs people with hearing disabilities, Amazon started the pilot a year and a half ago, with four associates with hearing disabilities who worked along with the rest in an Amazon delivery station.
A press release from the company says that seeing their strong performance, Amazon has now extended the partnership to a dedicated station that is almost completely managed by associates with hearing disability. “These associates deliver packages covering a radius of 2-3 kms from the delivery station by bus or on foot. They are trained on safety procedures and customer experience behaviors by the team at Mirakle Couriers through sign language. They use the same technology as hearing associates with some modification in processes to ease their delivery experience,” the statement adds.
Amazon has been vocal about empowering the communities associated with it. Their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives include education, health, skill development etc. Recently, Amazon also launched ‘The Saheli Store’ for products curated by women entrepreneurs on its India website, with an aim to empower them.
Amazon India has over 350 Service Partner nodes across the country. As part of the Service Partner programme, Amazon India launched a women-only delivery station in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, and the second in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It has also partnered with another service partner, Head Held High, to set-up a dedicated 'rural' e-commerce distribution centre manned by local youth in various parts of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh.
About the Silent Delivery Station, Akhil Saxena, Vice President, India Customer Fulfilment, Amazon India, said, “Our vision is to create opportunities for individuals to realise their potential and transform their lives. We are committed to using our resources and infrastructure of innovation and technology to enable diverse communities succeed. We are proud to have pioneered the ‘Silent Delivery Station’ which is a first-of-its-kind, India-specific innovation from Amazon.”