Jobs for People w/disAbility Creates Independence

There are times that our staff lose sleep thinking “What job can this young person do? where will they be successful?  Where can they use their unique abilities?” Even though we toss and turn with these questions they are better than not being able to sleep knowing that there are young people entering into gangs or just sitting at home hopeless because they have no one to help them find or create work programs that can improve their lives.

This is a priority for Familias Especiales to find the right job for the young person with a disAbility.  We write the word disAbility with a capital in the middle to emphasize that they have abilities that there whole life is not just about the dis ( I am creating this word dis) but about their abilities. But we often bump into obstacles in our society where only the dis is emphasized not only in those who can offer jobs but also in the young person themselves.  What do we do in these cases?  Special Families works with both those who have jobs to offer and young people to discover their abilities and to share this information with others.  The Social Staff was reflecting on the people who are motivated in their jobs.  They came to the conclusion that those young people who saw their work making a difference in general for other people were happier.  And the area where they are having the biggest affect is in the work with things that are more natural: work with the natural environment, work in  our programs to recycle paper, to do artwork with recycled materials, to do artwork to depict the animals in danger of extinction in Nicaragua (and the world) to make bags out of recycled kraft paper and cloth to try to eliminate plastic bags, to work in our small accessible park with the plants and care of orphaned turtles, to make natural yogurt and granola. As a staff we have decided that these are our priorities for the young people working as we close this year and plan for 2020.

We have young people with many different abilities and also dis.  Those young people who are deaf and mute have found creative work with us in our programs for the environment.  We have also placed several young people in a local environmental reserve and they are being able to show others that their dis is small compared to their abilities and creativity. Recently we had a meeting of those young people who are deaf and mute and they shared through their  own language of signs that if they were not working  with us that they might be at home dong nothing or they might be entering a gang who have recently formed in the midst of the crisis in Nicaragua.  This gang who are young people who are deaf and mute has been responsible for several robberies and threats to other people.  The police are searching for them.  But in their search the police have not had to worry about checking on those who have jobs with us.  Working has helped them make positive life decisions against situations which otherwise they would feel compelled to follow.  In our meeting the young people shared about their abilities and saw that if they were not working they would be falling only into their dis.  We are grateful to all who are helping us in this project  “Jobs Make A Difference For Young People With Disability”.  And we want to work with you to practically make the dis disappear as they become people with natural Abilities.

Links:

• artists working
• day of reflection with workers

Paul who has an intellectual disABILITY has been working in Recycling, however staff began to notice that he was having a hard time meeting his daily goals in paper selection.  Finally, one person talked to the psychologist and suggested that maybe Paul needed glasses.  The psychologist helped Paul to get an eye exam and yes, Paul had a vision problem.  FE was able to find a donor to help to pay for glasses for Paul but there is more to the story. Because of Paul’s struggle FE decided to start a new program called Super Lenses. Workers at FE can qualify for a free eye exams and for a discount on glasses and pay for them through deductions in their pay checks through a certain company.

We checked with this company and decided to see if they would do free eye exams for all of our young people whether they were working or not.  So we made a list of 80 people who needed exams. We are also including the children from the special education programs for super lenses.  We are going to have the exams in early Nov. and when those young people with a handicap come for their exams which will be in our center they will also receive several other health orientations.  We have a program for understanding Dengue Fever and the government insurance also has a program for testing for Diabetes.  

In the meantime, Paul has been ever so excited about being able to see things clearly that he has doubled his daily goals in recycling selecting papers and he cannot keep quiet about how glasses have changed his life.  This in turn has animated other young people to sign up for the eye exams.  We are starting a campaign to earn money to see if we can get glasses for those who show a need from the exams, our dream is to earn enough before Christmas so that all can enjoy the holidays more brightly and clearly.

We try to find out the needs of the young people in our work program so that they will have success at maintaining their jobs. There are so many aspects that we are never bored in the social labor program. Orientation is the most important so that we find the right job for the right person. 

You can’t really use the same idea more than once because the world of work is so dynamic that it might not work the second time around.  One has to have a bag of ideas to be able to keep these young people working. So we just recently placed several in our Kraft bag project which is meant to help eliminate the plastic bags by making Kraft bags.  Our young people are so proud of their work and we are also as we say thank you to all who have contributed to this project in global giving so that our young people can work in an environment that is positive and life giving, as they learn the culture of work through FE.