CSR: The Issue of Vulnerable Groups

The vulnerable group is a kind of social group which is relatively weak in social production and life, so it is less difficult to distribute and obtain social wealth. It includes children, the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill, the unemployed, the poor, laid-off workers and so on. At present, China's vulnerable group is a large-scale, complex structure and widely distributed group.
Since the reform and opening up, great changes have taken place in China's economic and social outlook, with per capita GDP more than quadrupled and people's living standards substantially improved. However, due to the overall level of economic and social development is still relatively low, the regional development is not balanced, and the dual structure of urban and rural areas is still relatively obvious. There are still a considerable number of groups in China with very low or no income, and lack of basic life security. At present, the vulnerable group has become a large-scale, complex group with its own characteristics, which is in a vulnerable position in society. Improving the social security system is the key to solve the problem of vulnerable groups.
The rapid development of e-commerce provides a new employment platform for vulnerable groups.
For more than ten years, Alibaba, the first company in China to issue a disability report, has been focusing on the employment, entrepreneurship and life of disabled groups with multiple public welfare projects, such as “modoumama” and “gongyibaobei”.
Alibaba “modoumama” project helped lots of disabled people start businesses and become rich through e-commerce, and promoted more employment for disabled groups. According to statistics, over the past ten years, "modoumama" has helped more than 20000 women who are in trouble but are constantly striving for self-improvement.
In order to help the disabled better start businesses through e-commerce platform, Alibaba launched the green channel and support policy for Internet entrepreneurship for the disabled, providing services such as Wangpu Professional Edition discount for the disabled. As of March 2017, more than 7000 disabled sellers have enjoyed this preferential service, saving tens of millions of promotion fees for the disabled entrepreneurs every year.
In May 2011, the cloud customer service project of "home employment" disabled people was officially launched, and they were called "special cloud group". Some of them don't have arms, they can only type with their own feet, some can't move freely, they can only sit in a wheelchair to answer the inquiries of users. But through "cloud customer service", they found a dignified way of life. Now, in Henan Zhongmou, Guangdong Yingde, Shandong Rizhao, Yunnan Xishuangbanna and other places, "cloud customer service" employment base has been established. As of October 2018, 9300 disabled people have signed up for "cloud customer service", with a total of 6405 on duty. At present, there are more than 1000 on duty. Their average monthly income is more than 1000 yuan, and the excellent ones are more than 10000 yuan a month.
In order to enable blind people to enjoy the life changes brought about by the Internet, Alibaba established the "Taobao barrier free improvement laboratory" to improve the disabled user access experience of Taobao, focusing on blind users in the early stage. After a certain standard of technical transformation, the current Taobao page has basically met the needs of the blind. Blind people can complete the whole transaction process with the help of screen reading software, and the language verification code has been online in some businesses such as registration, forum, etc. Blind people can also download Wangwang barrier free improvement customized version to achieve online communication. Barrier free fault testing has been included in Taobao product development and testing, becoming a necessary process before product release.
According to the big data of China Disabled Persons' Federation and Alibaba, at present, there are 174100 disabled online stores on Alibaba e-commerce platform, which have generated 29.84 billion yuan of sales in the past three years. According to the latest year's data, from June 2018 to May 2019, the sales of Taobao store for the disabled reached 11.6 billion yuan.
Alibaba has indeed made a lot of efforts for vulnerable groups, so that there is only little thing that I can mention. If we can build cloud customer service bases for the disabled in more cities in China, it will provide greater help for the disabled friends in other cities.