Andrey Tevkin organized the craft workshop "Artel of the Blessed", which employs people with mental disabilities 18 years ago.
The artel produces wood products.
Blessed
According to Tevkin, for people with disabilities, work is not slave labor, but the only opportunity for socialization.
“Without work, the life of the guys will be completely hopeless.
Even a short isolation for them means desocialization.
Skills, even such simple ones as traveling on public transport, rules of conduct at work, are fixed slowly, but are lost very quickly, ”explains the head of the workshop.
But now the artel is going through hard times.
Due to the situation with the epidemic of coronavirus infection, sales problems arose.
Previously, most of the products were sold at mass events and festivals, but now they are not held.
“The fact that we survived is already worth a lot.
In such a difficult situation, we did not stop working for a minute, we did not lay off any of the children with disabilities, "Tevkin tells RT.
In order to retain employees, he had to cut other costs as much as possible and abandon some of the premises that the artel rented.
“Among our parents there are police officers, medical workers, their work has become much more, and no one says:“ Stay at home, since your child is disabled ”.
We are looking for all the resources to bring the children to work, even on weekends, because, for example, my mother works in three shifts in the hospital, ”Tevkin describes the situation.
According to him, one of the difficulties faced during the pandemic was the transportation of employees from home to work and back.
Some of its employees are already 35-40 years old, their parents have reached retirement age and cannot move around the city because of the self-isolation regime.
“There are people with severe enough diagnoses, and we, unfortunately, cannot provide accompanying persons for everyone, there are not enough volunteers who could take them to work and back,” Tevkin says.
At the same time, many employees were blocked on preferential travel cards and now they have to pay for travel, because no one began to figure out what they have for disability.
We also had to change the working space in the workshop, taking into account new sanitary requirements - the distance between employees was increased.
According to Tevkin, the capital's authorities went to meet the artels and provided a new spacious building.
But they still cannot start work there due to delays in connecting to the mains.
“We have a room, but we cannot work without electricity.
It turns out that it takes three months to put on the wires and seal the meter.
It is not clear to me why the official from Mosenergosbyt did not say: dozens of guys can stay on the street, now we will quickly connect everything.
With such an indifferent attitude, any progress in the social sphere will be hampered at all levels.
Each time you have to fight your way through the performers to the very top in order to resolve pressing issues, ”says Andrey.
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© @artel_blazhennyh
OAB
Marianna Orlinkova has been professionally engaged in cooking for many years.
She led a column in the magazine "Gastronom", worked as a brand chef for several restaurants in Moscow and Budapest.
And recently it teaches people with mental disabilities to cook.
Marianna is the head of the GAMP (Gastronomic Model Area) project, which was launched on September 2 at the Center for Curative Pedagogy (CLP).
“Last year the CLP received a large building.
The idea immediately came to mind to use the canteen to educate people with disabilities, ”says Orlinkova.
Now, according to her, the courses are attended by 30 people aged 18 to 40 with different diagnoses.
In the future, it is planned to launch a cafe on the basis of the project, in which the employees and visitors of the CCP will be fed.
Marianna emphasizes that their project is not a circle format where people with mental disabilities are simply trying to occupy something, it is a full-fledged professional education.
According to her, a quarter of the students will be able to get a job in the future in public catering.
True, the training system had to be adjusted taking into account the characteristics of students.
Teachers-psychologists and volunteers with special training also participate in the classes, they help to establish contact with students.
According to the teacher, there are many details and concepts that are obvious to normotypical people, but unknown to her students with mental characteristics.
Therefore, you have to start from the basics, building systematic knowledge.
Most of the gaps are among the students who came from psycho-neurological boarding schools.
However, even those students who will not work as a cook in the future receive important skills in the courses: they will be able to cook for themselves, understand how to handle food.
“I see how people overcome their fears in the courses.
For example, someone refuses to work with a large knife because it scares, and then picks up the knife and begins to deftly wield it.
Or he decides to try some new dishes.
All this is also very important, ”says Orlinkova.
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Competitive training needed
Yekaterina Men, President of the Center for Autism Problems (CAP), is confident that work for people with autism should not be limited to craft work, but so far they have practically no opportunities to unleash their potential in other areas.
“In the 20th century, it has developed that people with intellectual disabilities have to make stools, ceramics, work in workshops.
Protected workshops are really a very important story, adults can come there to draw, do something.
But manual labor is becoming a thing of the past and is being replaced by digital technologies, ”says Men.
She is confident that such people can successfully compete in the open labor market if the necessary conditions are created for them.
According to Ekaterina, a number of the largest companies - IBM, HP, Apple and others - are already running special programs to hire people with autism, and they look at it not as charity, but as a commercially successful project.
“We can teach a person to perform several narrow tasks, relatively speaking, endlessly pressing several buttons on a computer - and he will be able to find a job in the banking sector that he will do well.
Most of us are not interested in such work, but there are people who will do it diligently and with enthusiasm, ”explains Ekaterina.
Pandemic kicked back
According to her, the Center for Autism Problems has already begun to implement these ambitious plans, but the pandemic makes it difficult to test new methods in real mode.
“We were thrown back a lot.
We had to conduct regular classes in test mode in areas such as IT, basic robotics, and the like.
This age has its own characteristics to check the methods that will allow specialists to work with adolescents.
But we can’t go on a regular schedule ”, - Ekaterina Men describes the situation.
Since all the planned CPA courses are based on a general education school, they are held as additional classes and are subject to a number of strict sanitary restrictions.
Children should be divided into smaller groups, classes should be held much less frequently.
“We are talking only about point classes, the selection of teachers who will be able to do vocational training, theoretical work.
While this is just a preliminary development, the design is taken from the head, and then it needs to be checked.
If COVID-19 does not interfere with us, we will develop everything, but only in direct contact with the guys.
We cannot just sit and theorize, we must all the time try, check, like a professional laboratory, ”says Men.
Some Russian corporations have already shown interest in this work.
For example, Gazprom Neft has already hired several people with autism spectrum disorder to analyze the data from CCTV cameras.
Several other large companies have announced similar plans, but members of the community working with people with mental disabilities fear that due to the coronavirus pandemic, the implementation of these projects may be delayed.