RCL Foods: He’s an MBA graduate, motivational speaker and inspiration!

Posted onFri 3 Dec 2021

He is an MBA graduate, motivational speaker and inspiration!

Anderton Kevin Naidoo has been with RCL FOODS since 2015 when the company acquired Foodcorp. He has a daily impact at RCL FOODS by sharing his product knowledge, skills and training staff like RCL FOODS, through his role as KZN Training Manager. But it’s Kevin’s life outside of RCL FOODS that inspires us to DO MORE.

Kevin suffers from severe bilateral hearing loss which has left him hard of hearing. He does, however, use a hearing aid. Throughout school, he was bullied relentlessly because of it. “I always have to work twice as hard and study twice as hard, just to be recognized,” he explained. But rather than shake him up, the adversity he faced sparked an unquenchable thirst in him to make a difference. “To be honest, I will continue to be ambitious and inspire people with my behavior and actions.”

Motivated to make South Africa more accommodating for people with disabilities, Kevin joined the KZN Blind and Deaf Society in 2011, and with his experience as a former sports reporter for the Tabloid and Rising Sun newspapers, he believed he could put his skills in the written press. wisely and bring much needed publicity to the company. “As a sports journalist, I wanted to use the print media to create an exhibition,” he explained. Having lived with a disability himself, Kevin found society with the intention of connecting with others with similar experiences and doing good at KZN for people like him. In a world that is not for people with disabilities, Kevin wants others to work to create a more accessible environment. For him, for this, everyone must integrate disability into their daily lives: “First, we could at least try to understand the challenges that people with disabilities face on a daily basis. Second, to try to welcome them into society in terms of social understanding. Third, to create work opportunities for people with disabilities ”.

With these as his guiding pillars for a just society, Kevin employs them in his own life. In fact, as he completed his MBA, he realized how inaccessible research material was to the visually impaired and felt inspired to convert his thesis into Braille, to do his part in changing tendency. Coming from a family that depended to some extent on government grants, education has always been important. For this reason, the conversion to Braille was of additional importance. Now, visually impaired people have access to Kevin’s work and further their education.

The official conversion took place on the 20th^e October 2021, exactly three years after Kevin’s mother died. “My mom was surely looking at me with a big smile,” he said. “I hope this will become a trend where authors, academics and researchers convert their material to Braille,” he added. International Disability Day is today the 3^e December 2021, and Kevin has some thoughts to share with the world. “People with disabilities can be the best workers that no one hires,” he said. Having encountered difficulties himself, Kevin knows how difficult it can be to find a job and even get a promotion without dealing with callous and ignorant people. “The stigma is still there,” he explained, adding that there needs to be more awareness training for staff involved in the hiring process. Today Kevin spends a lot of time helping other people with disabilities find jobs. He says that to be truly diversified, companies must include people with disabilities in their hiring pool, in apprenticeships and also ensure the transfer of skills.