"Special work centres cannot become mummy fridges"

BarcelonaWhen Marc Buxaderas' parents had to look for a school for their son with spastic tetraplegic cerebral palsy, they did not find any centre in Manresa "that was willing to take the deceased." They had to pack their bags and go to Fonollosa, "a town in the hippies" where "some crazy teachers" made it clear that disability is part of our society and that it must be made visible in schools.

Two decades later, Buxaderas is an activist for the rights of this group, an actor in plays such as Sugar mother And, this Wednesday, the monologuist invited to open the round table Inclusion: creating job opportunities for all, the first in a series organised by the ARA and the Catalunya La Pedrera Foundation in the auditorium of the emblematic Antoni Gaudí building. The event, moderated by the newspaper's deputy director Carla Turró, has raised an even more formidable challenge: guaranteeing access to the labour market for people with disabilities or in vulnerable situations.

"Special centres do a fantastic job, but they were originally designed to prepare people with disabilities to enter the labour market. They cannot become refrigerators for mummies. People end up staying until retirement," Buxaderas stressed on the difficult transition of these people. Use of work.

Inclusion, in short, is only real if we put it into practice. And many companies are still not willing, despite being obliged –when they have more than fifty workers– to have 2% of employees with disabilities.

Annasse El Amrani, another of the participants in the event, found work when he could not continue with his studies for financial reasons and companies asked him for experience that he had not had time to accumulate. The person who gave him this first opportunity was MANOS Agrosociales, an organic fruit and vegetable cooperative in Sant Vicenç dels Horts that generates employment for people at risk of social exclusion. "I joined in 2016 as a child to do a replacement and now I am responsible for production," he explains. The roles have been reversed and now it is up to him to train the young people in care who come to the entity and help them "leave the nest."

Hiring obstacles

At the Pas a Pas Foundation they are also dedicated to offering these first opportunities and –as its director, Eva Calvés, admits– they continue to come up against a labour market that is not inclusive. "Ordinary companies have a hard time selecting people with disabilities because that means adapting jobs, providing support and dedicating resources," she laments.

The key to some of these issues is the public administration, which has been represented at the round table by David Bonvehí, director general of Social Economy and Cooperatives of the Generalitat. "The resources are there," he assured. He also reiterated the need to control that the business community complies with its obligations in this area. Even so, the senior government official has defended another proposal so that the word inclusion do not use it in vain: "A brutal awareness campaign so that companies are not afraid to hire people with disabilities."