COMFENALCO Antioquia Training for social and labor insertion and inform

Training for social and labor insertion
and information access for disabled persons

This project seeks creation of social, cultural and job integration possibilities for the young and adult population of the city of Medellin and the Metropolitan area who are physically, visually or auditory challenged, using processes of human, job and technical training, psycho-affective support for beneficiaries and their families, assistance in finding jobs, and finally the creation of spaces of social and cultural inclusion through access to knowledge and information at COMFENALCO Antioquia’s libraries.

Objectives

Development Goals: By 2011 we will have contributed to increasing the training, self-training and socialization processes of disabled people in Medellín, Itagui, Bello and Apartado, re-configuring their relationships with their work, family and community environments.

Project Goals: By 2009, 320 disabled persons living in the municipalities of Medellin, Itagui, Bello and Apartadó have increased their possibilities for family, social, cultural and work insertion; likewise 730 more people, including family members, teachers, librarians, library aids and volunteers have been sensitized and guided as enablers of the insertion process for people with special abilities.

Problem we intend to address with the project

The Department of Antioquia’s disabled population suffers family, labor related, social, cultural, educational, legal and political marginalization.

The National Administrative Department of Statistics –DANE- presumes that 10% of the Colombian population has some kind of disability. It is estimated that there is a large group of people in the Department of Antioquia in this situation, although there is no updated and precise data on the subject, and those that exist are those supplied by the DANE in their 1993 census, as follows:
At that time the total population of the Department of Antioquia was 4,301,409 inhabitants, 101,594 of which were disabled, which at that time was equivalent to 17.11% of the disabled population in the country, and 2.36% of the Department’s total population.

According to statistics released by the Solidarity Secretary for the City of Medellín, in 2003 there was a population of 8,119 people with some loss of physical, mental or sensory abilities, without the financial and family resources to tend to their situation and overcome it in order to live in a dignified manner.

Regarding education it has been determined that some disabled persons, during the first stages of their lives, are put into special education institutions, and very few are ever included in regular classrooms. This is made worse by the fact that teachers receive people with special educational needs in their classrooms, but have neither the tools nor the training to work with them, which ends up blocking their progress.

Likewise, few people ever enter into an occupation, due to the following limitations: stoppage of their basic education, no training in an art or a trade, not tapping the potential of this population’s abilities, a lack of family and social opportunities to access work training and to enter the labor market, employers don’t know the abilities of a person in this situation and therefore don’t believe in their capacities. This situation means that the families of these persons become highly resentful and the disabled family member comes to represent a financial and emotional burden, reflected in the family’s relationships, which in some cases can break down the family completely.

Strategies

Technological Adaptation:
For executing the project’s different components certain technological adaptations need to be made to the classrooms and libraries according to the different kinds of disabilities.

Sensory Disability (visual)
Computers adapted with screen reading software (Lookout, dual, magnus)
Braille Printers
Scanner (text digitization)
CD Book reader (Victor Reader)
Intelligent reading machine– All reader
Headphones

Sensory Disability (Hearing)
Classroom adaptations (control lights)
Video beam
DVD Player

Physicial Disability
Trackball mice
Intellikeys keyboards
Adapted switches
Articulated arms

Integral training in 4 areas:

Updating basic competencies:
This training lasts for 90 classroom hours, and will focus on the development of communications and basic math skills emphasizing the subjects most required by any technical training course.

Human Training:
Due to the characteristics of the project’s target population, its level of education and other no less important factors, it is important to include this area of education for an average of 90 classroom hours. This block includes education in areas like teamwork, sexual education, values, life project, citizen participation, conflict resolution and the environment.

Technical Training:
With an average duration of 6 months, the beneficiaries will receive a 380 course emphasizing graphic design, office work and typist-receptionist.

Social and job training: With an average duration of 160 hours, this block is aimed at preparation for self-employment and entering the job market in any manner (self-employment, employment and associative employment).

Job insertion
This component includes two clearly defined variables in the project: job intermediation which consists of assisting disabled persons in their search for employment, and supporting business initiatives that contemplate the promotion of self-employment by guiding the component’s graduates in implementing a business plan that will help them in their wish to begin their live as an entrepreneur.

Keeping in mind that both job alternatives contain difficulties for accessing the basic tools necessary for carrying out the job, the company or the beneficiary, depending upon the type of employment, will be offered the tools that will help them carry out their job in an optimal manner.

Psycho-affective support
Aimed at disabled persons and their families. This strategy intends to identify conducts that could influence the development of the beneficiaries, using psychological intervention tools that will allow the person, the family and the environment they operate in, to understand and comprehend the situations and behaviors inherent to the development process of disabled persons.

Spaces for social and cultural inclusion
A reading room will be created with the technical specifications, reading materials and specialized equipment so that disabled persons can have autonomous access to texts and information. Likewise, six branch libraries will be endowed with basic equipment, bibliographical and audiovisual equipment to support and enhance the opportunities of these people located in different sectors of the city.

Beneficiary population

The Integral Formation will attend 70 people distributed over 5 groups as follows: two groups for visually challenged persons, two for physically challenged persons and one for those with hearing difficulties.

The Job Insertion component is aimed at covering 20% of the people that attend the integral training component.

The Psycho-affective Support component will attend:

An average of two family members of each of the 320 disabled persons through orientation workshops.
90 people including teachers, librarians, library aids and volunteers, offering them four sensitization workshops for working with disabled persons.
50 beneficiaries will receive assistance for individual and family psycho-affective support.

Finally, the Spaces for social and cultural inclusion component is aimed at all the project’s beneficiaries.

Cost

The project will cost approximately $830,000,000

Responsible:
Department of Family Welfare and Education. Care of Impaired
Department of Culture and Libraries
Creative Thinking Development Program – CRISOL