MARSHALL, Va., Nov. 8, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Ilene Morris-Sambur, CEO and Founder of CORA (Creating Opportunities by Recognizing Abilities), received the 2006 New Freedom Initiative Award from U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao during a Department of Labor ceremony held in Washington, D.C. on October 26, 2006. Ms. Morris-Sambur was this year's sole recipient in the annual Award's Individual category.
Introduced in 2001, the NFI Award honors exemplary and innovative efforts to ensure that people with disabilities have the opportunity to fully participate in all aspects of community life, including employment. The awards were presented during National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
"Americans with disabilities are a valuable part of our workforce," said Secretary Chao. "The New Freedom Initiative Award ceremony is a great opportunity to recognize the employers, organizations and individuals who have shown exceptional commitment to equal access and opportunity for Americans with disabilities."
When Ms. Morris-Sambur first learned that her son had multiple sclerosis, she became passionately committed to helping individuals with disabilities lead productive, self-sustaining lives. She realized there was a need for a company that focused on identifying telework opportunities, training and mentoring people with disabilities to increase their employment opportunities and success. Ms. Morris-Sambur founded CORA, Inc., a company that offers supervised telework outsourcing solutions for accounting, business-to-business collections, customer service and administrative functions, by providing customized training and mentoring programs online for job specific functions.
For many persons with significant disabilities, the increase of telework opportunities offers the possibility of an accessible, barrier-free workplace, flexible scheduling and the elimination of disability-related bias or discrimination. Implementing an online multi-faceted program to recruit, train, hire, supervise, mentor and promote people with disabilities has provided the opportunity to work from any location, 24/7.
"We have found that the same training and mentoring approach we use for a financially distressed company's staff works exceptionally well to provide the emotional support, training and supervision during the first ninety days of a candidate's employment, which is critical to their telework success," says Morris-Sambur. "Our objective is for companies to directly hire our candidates after they have demonstrated a level of competence and commitment. Experience has shown that the workers in our program are more productive, focused and serious about their work responsibilities."
"Our greatest challenge now is to encourage Corporate America to go beyond simply donating money to disability related causes," says Ms. Morris-Sambur. "A monetary donation only goes so far, but providing meaningful home employment is a donation that bestows long-term support," she says.
"We want Corporate America to realize our program is a win/win situation for their company. We are asking companies to invite us to identify and recommend telework strategies within their organization that will increase productivity and profits," says Ms. Morris-Sambur. "We have improved profits for hundreds of companies and are anxious to demonstrate how our pilot programs works. Together I genuinely believe we will make a tremendous difference for the 59 million Americans with disabilities, approximately 70% of whom remain unemployed."
CORA also provides job training to disabled veterans and military spouses in the Walter Reed Telework Training Pilot Program. "We are seeking additional companies to co-sponsor this program with training funds donations or by participating in a pilot program," says Ms. Morris-Sambur. "Once program effectiveness is demonstrated, CORA plans to roll-out our program to other military hospitals."
About CORA
CORA provides job opportunities in telework for individuals with disabilities, disabled veterans, their families and spouses. As an award recipient, Ilene Morris-Sambur has demonstrated how to improve corporate performance and profits in financially distressed companies, the same technology can be applied to "financially well" companies. The result is further improved productivity, profits and increased Work@Home opportunities. CORA's training, consultation, and staff supervision programs, built on 20+ years of turnaround consulting experience as interim management in over 50 industries, provides employers with the knowledge and resources required to use telework effectively and profitably.
For more information about CORA, please visit http://www.coraworks.com.
For more information about the New Freedom Initiative Awards, visit http://www.dol.gov/odep/.