Seven people with disabilities get jobs in regular companies
Canary Islands | October 30, 2018
For most people, the summer season evokes rest and vacation retreat with which many want to leave aside, at least temporarily, work and studies. Not so for the people who make up Envera, an association that for more than 40 years has been accompanying people with intellectual disabilities throughout their life cycle, providing them with care services and employment.
For this non-profit organization, summer is a time of opportunities. So much so that in recent weeks and only in its delegation of Gran Canaria, seven people with disabilities have accessed a job in ordinary companies.
This is the case of Mamadou, a 33-year-old Malian who came to Spain in search of a better future and where, thanks to the training offered by Envera, he has found a job as a receptionist at the Hotel Paradise Lago in the south of Gran Canaria. With this job Mamadou can support the family he has formed in Spain and will soon be able to see one of his dreams come true: to return to visit his hometown.
Like Mamadou, other Envera colleagues have been able to join companies this summer. Five of them worked directly with the public, as access controllers and clerks, and another as a gardener.
All of them have seen how the effort pays off after taking the training for employment that Envera provides each year and free of charge to people with disabilities in the Canary Islands through Integrated Itinerary Projects for Labor Insertion co-financed by the Canary Islands Employment Service and the European Social Fund and the Training Programs in Alternation with Employment financed by national employment funds.
In Gran Canaria, the Certificates of Professionalism in Administrative Activities in Customer Relations, Auxiliary Activities in Nurseries, Gardens and Garden Centers, and Auxiliary Activities in Agriculture are taught through the Comunica Envera, Bio Envera and Agro Envera projects.
For its part, the Envera delegation in Tenerife offers the Certificates of Professionalism in Auxiliary Activities in nurseries, gardens and garden centers, in Auxiliary Activities in Agriculture, and in Installation and maintenance of gardens and green areas. The students of the latter, who belong to the Savia Envera Project, have just finished their professional internships in work centers.
Envera points out that the involvement of companies is essential for people with disabilities to have the opportunity to demonstrate that we can all be the best at something. That is why they work with organizations such as INSERHOTEL (Hotel Botánico & The Oriental Spa Garden), Hardisson Jardinería, Zona Verde, CESPA or the UTE Urbaser - Interjardín.
Envera's training managers say they are "very proud of our students, happy to see them achieve their goals and, above all, grateful to the employees of the human resources departments who believe in the employment of people with disabilities and who trust Envera to find the candidates their companies need, thus complying in many cases with the General Law on Disability".
For Envera's professionals, not only professional training is important, but also the social involvement of its students. For this reason, through the Agro Envera Project, aimed at training people with disabilities, unemployed people and people over 30 years of age, more than 2,000 kilograms of food have been donated to the Red Cross, obtained from the agricultural production that the students themselves cultivated, cared for and harvested, and which are now destined to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged families in Tenerife.
