All people with disabilities are invited to participate in Duoday.

The same applies to the able-bodied who would like to share their knowledge and their experience in business.

-

Drazen Zigic / Getty Images Plus

Festivals, fairs, conferences or even weddings, the Covid-19 will have been right in many events in 2020. In the midst of this unprecedented health crisis and a few weeks after the start of a second confinement, one event nevertheless resists cascading cancellations : the DuoDay.

Or rather the TéléDuoDay since this highlight of the meeting between a person with a disability and an employee of a private or public company will finally be maintained, at a distance, on November 19.

The high point of the European Week for the Employment of People with Disabilities (SEEPH), all the difficulty of this fourth edition of the meeting will therefore be to maintain its social and inclusive identity despite the distance.

For Sophie Cluzel, Secretary of State to the Prime Minister, in charge of People with disabilities, this distance is however always preferable to a postponement.

"The DuoDay is even more important this year because of the health crisis we are going through but above all the economic crisis it announces", explains the Minister.

“While last January the number of unemployed people with disabilities had fallen below the five hundred thousand mark, we especially did not want to break this dynamic,” she adds.

From a distance, but the principle remains the same

In fact, the concept remains the same: a company, a community or an association welcomes a person with a disability, in duo with a volunteer professional, for a day.

Just this year, most of the meetings will be through interposed computers.

Conditions that initially slowed down Reda Haddad, 22, disabled and looking for a job. "I had some reservations when I learned that the day was going to be done by computer.

I found it unfortunate that there was no longer direct contact.

However, Google's advertising service, which is hosting Réda on November 19, reassured him by sending him a detailed schedule for that day upstream.

Concretely, this remote duo will consist of a presentation time of the company in the morning, then exchanges with the pair but also the whole team to discuss the issue of disability.

Videoconferencing, zoom coffee, Skype… All these tools that have marked most of life in business since the start of the health crisis will therefore be the great novelty of the 2020 edition of DuoDay.

On the other hand, face-to-face or remote, just like in previous years, the objectives of the event remain the same.

“For the company, it is a question of 'demystifying' disability among employees but also of involving them in a project that makes sense.

For people with disabilities, the ambition is to discover a new working environment and lift self-censorship, ”explains Sophie Cluzel.

[DUODAY] For the # DuoDay2020 edition @s_cluzel @handicap_gouv will be in a duo with an ESAT worker from the @FondationANAIS de Gennevilliers (92), Hakime Messaï!

Discover his profile!


A great meeting to follow on November 19 ... https: //t.co/R9hQDvTtBs

- ANAIS Foundation (@FondationANAIS) November 16, 2020

A worrying health situation

For Réda Haddad, the expectations around this day go even further.

"I know that I can have difficulty expressing myself in public or speaking in front of a group, I hope that the DuoDay will help me overcome this embarrassment", confides the young man.

He also confesses that the great ambition of this day is for him to find a job within the Google company.

“The health situation worries me and I'm afraid to find even fewer job advertisements than before.

I hope they can offer me a job if the day goes well.

" 

A concern shared by the Minister, which is why she insists on the role of employment players in 2021: "It is essential that companies maintain their human resources policies in favor of people with disabilities and that they continue to collaborate with them.

“When we know that 6,800 employers responded to the call of DuoDay in 2019, we must therefore hope that the virtual meetings of this 2020 edition will lead to collaborations that will be very real.

Health

Coronavirus: What rights and what exemptions for people with disabilities?

Politics

Disability: Jean Castex and around twenty ministers announce new measures

  • Handicap

  • Inclusion

  • All disability news is on 20minutes.fr

  • Employment