Canary Islands | September 4, 2017
Andrés Rodríguez came to Envera with one goal in mind: to train to get his first job. On the advice of his brother Eduardo, an alumnus of this organization dedicated to the social and occupational integration of people with intellectual disabilities, Andrés joined the Semilla Project, promoted by Envera in Tenerife, as a student.
During the 2015-2016 academic year, Andrés and fourteen other colleagues, all of them people with disabilities, worked to obtain the two professional certificates to which this training project gives access: Auxiliary Activities in Agriculture and Auxiliary Activities in Gardens, Nurseries and Garden Centers.
Andrés values this training, which has been "very useful in my preparation to acquire knowledge and skills for a job. They have been concerned about teaching me, for example, the use of machinery, and I have had colleagues from whom I have also learned a lot from their experience".
However, Andrés is clear that the key to achieving quality training has been the internships in the workplace, since "they help us to see how a company works, to carry out everything we have learned in the project, to meet new people, to have more experience. In addition, with the internships, companies get to know us and we have a better chance of being hired".
Thanks to this internship, Andrés, 23 years old, has been able to demonstrate his professionalism and get his first job at La Huerta de Tato, a company specializing in organic food. Andrés hopes "that they will be happy with me and that I will be with them for a long time".
The Envera Delegation in Tenerife assures that "Andrés was always participative, interested in learning and eager to do things well in order to have the possibility of getting a job". He succeeded, but he knows that it is not enough. He continues to prepare himself and his next challenge will be to pass the driving license with which he hopes to broaden his job prospects.
Envera is currently carrying out the 2016-2017 Seed Project in Tenerife, which is free for students and is part of the Integrated Itineraries for Labor Market Insertion co-financed by the Government of the Canary Islands and the European Union through the European Social Fund Operational Program. In June, the students carry out the internships in companies of the certificate of Auxiliary Activities in Agriculture thanks to the collaboration agreements that Envera has with Catesa Foods, Finca Puntagorda, Vegetal Salud, Bodegas Monje, La Huerta de Tato and Sat Fast, Tenerife companies committed to the training and labor insertion of people with disabilities that support Envera's mission.
Grupo Envera is a non-profit organization founded 40 years ago by Iberia employees, whose transparency is accredited by the Fundación Lealtad, and which serves 2,500 people with intellectual disabilities every year in its early care services, child and youth neurodevelopment, training, occupational and day center, and residences and guardianship; it employs more than 500 people with functional diversity and trains more than 300 athletes; it has the support of 250 volunteers and has a hundred collaborating entities. It has centers in Madrid, Colmenar Viejo (Madrid), Barcelona, Malaga, Tenerife and Las Palmas. This year it commemorates its 40th anniversary under the slogan "We can all be the best at something" and the honorary presidency of Her Majesty Queen Letizia.
