According to the World Health Organisation around 15% of the world’s population, or one billion people, have a disability. WHO’s mission is to enhance the quality of life for people with disabilities through national, regional and global efforts and to raise awareness about the magnitude and consequences.

What about Malta? Currently there are 900 persons with disability who are employed on a full time basis and another 200 persons with disability employed part-time in Malta and Gozo. However several others are striving to find a job suitable to their needs and skills, that helps them become more independent.

The Equal Opportunities Act (Chapter 413) makes it illegal to discriminate against a person because of their disability in various aspects of life, including employment. Through this Act, a person with disability has the right to apply for a job, become an apprentice or receive training. His/her application must be considered in a just manner on the basis of merit. What more is being done?

ME2! Project

The Me2! Project is a European Social Fund project under the operational programme II (ESF 3.62) lead by the Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS), in collaboration with the National Commission Persons with Disability (KNPD) and the Employment and Training Corporation (ETC). These entities collaborate through Me2! to integrate persons with disability into the local workforce. This is done through training and assessing persons with disability to identify their skills and competences, thus assisting them to be in a better position to find suitable and respective employment.

Training and Job Exposure

Me2! was initiated at the end of 2009, bringing together a team of Trainers, Support Workers and Occupational Therapists. Up to end of 2011, the Trainers’ team provided training to persons with disability on general skills, such as basic clerical skills, working conditions and ethics, money management, commitment and job retention, verbal and written communication skills, computer basics, boundaries and other topics to enhance independent living skills.

During this process, beneficiaries together with their respective Support Workers and Trainers, had the opportunity to discuss the day-to-day issues on integrating into the workforce and what persons with disability face with respect to employment with recruitment agencies, unions and employers.

The role of the Support Workers throughout the project was to focus on finding project beneficiaries with job exposures that potentially would lead to full or part-time employment. In order to enhance this aspect of the project, Me2! was involved in a transnational activity. A team of ten beneficiaries were accompanied by a selected team of ten Support Workers for a 10-day visit to the Project’s transnational partner, Brandon Trust, based in Bristol, United Kingdom:

“Brandon Trust is a Bristol based UK charity working throughout the South West of England, employing nearly 2000 people who support approximately 1500 people with learning disabilities to live the lives they choose. We have a wide range of experience in working with people with complex needs whose behaviour sometimes challenges the environment in which they live. At Brandon Trust we believe that all people are able to lead fulfilled lives. Our role is to find a way to make that happen for each individual.”

During the time in Bristol, persons with disability had a good experience working in various jobs offered through the structure of the UK partner, i.e. in a cafeteria, farm, packing and carpentering jobs. Feedback was very positive and Support Workers were exposed to a different approach on communicating and treating persons with disability. The behavior of project beneficiaries improved during these ten days, as they were more open to talk about their experiences and enthusiastic to work on every given task.

Reached Goals

Up to today there are 430 persons with disability registered as beneficiaries with the Me2! Project. 8 persons have found full-time employment, 31 persons are receiving support in order to maintain their current employment, while another 21 persons with disability are being trained to obtain new skills, thanks to educational institutions outside the Me2! project, such as MCAST. There were also 67 persons with disability doing job exposure in different work places.

On the basis of operational rules set by the project’s grant agreement, all project beneficiaries have to be between 16 and 55 years of age, and are registered with KNPD. Project beneficiaries attend one of Aġenzija Sapport’s Day Centres for Persons with Disability across Malta or reside in the community at large. Their common desire is to develop their independent living skills and identify already existing competencies to build up an assertiveness that would lead to an independent lifestyle with full or part-time employment. Me2! beneficiaries, who were offered a job training opportunity had 320 hours job exposure and a training aid financial assistance plan.

Success Stories

Elvin Bugeja is a person with disability employed on a full-time basis thanks to the Me2! Project. Despite his hearing and speech impairment, Elvin managed to overcome his disability and integrate himself within the working environment of Hetronic (Division of Methode Electronics Malta Ltd). The Me2! Project provided Elvin with the opportunity to carry out on the job training for 320 hours within Hetronic. Eventually, once the training experience was over, the company was so satisfied with the work Elvin carried out, that they decided to employ him on a full-time basis.

Fabrizia Agius is another person with disability who benefited from on-the-job training with Maypole Bakery. Like Elvin, she was successful in implementing her job, and the company has decided to get her on board. Fabrizia has now been almost five months employed with Maypole. Her job mostly entails packing bread and stacking products in one of the company’s outlets. Fabrizia is very enthusiastic about the thought of waking up every day and having a place of work to go to.

Way Forward

As from November 2011 and throughout 2012 the main objective of Me2! Project is to spin off the Me2! Cooperative Limited. The cooperative concept runs on two platforms: one is to train beneficiaries to understand cooperatives and emphasise their capabilities of achieving results; the second is the process of exploring and identifying jobs that complement the individual beneficiary’s capabilities. Me2! Support Workers are working closely to establish partnership relations with local businesses, which together can recognise potential business opportunities that Co-op clients can take on board. Hence, the cooperative is providing an opportunity to Me2! Project beneficiaries to understand their potential and work together in order to complement each other in achieving business goals.

Our team at the Me2! Project, through almost three years of experience working closely with project beneficiaries, has recognised that it is not appropriate to make comparisons between individuals on how they achieve a given task. We should rather focus on how collectively they complement each other enabling thus to reach set goals.

References

‘International Day of Persons with Disabilities’. Available: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/annual/day_disabilities/en/index.html. Accessed 30 April 2012.

For more information about this project, the general public may visit www.sapport.gov.mt.

Article provided by Aġenzija Sapport (www.sapport.gov.mt), which forms part of the Foundation for Social Welfare Services, which also incorporates Aġenzija Appoġġ (www.appogg.gov.mt) and Aġenzija Sedqa (www.sedqa.gov.mt).