SOCIAL SEEDS joins SENSES in České Budějovice

Several of the SOCIAL SEEDS partners, as stakeholders and partners of the InterregDanube SENSES project, took part in two days of seminars and study visits in the environs of České Budějovice (CZ) on 13 and 14 of February 2018. Participants learned about the Czech social enterprise landscape and were able to explore the policies and measures in place to support social entrepreneurs through study visits.

A very interesting case is ARPIDA, is a rehabilitation centre for disabled people. Since 1993, they have been offering help to families taking care of disabled children and young people. This centre was built as both a non-profit organisation (without National State’s financial support), combining schools and educational  facilities, therapeutic rehabilitation and social services. The target group of ARPIDA is mainly children. ARPIDA’s school provides education and training to children, pupils and students with physical (motoric) and combined disabilities. They also organise activities and holiday camps for these children.

Today, the employment of disabled people is a challenging issue. It is difficult to integrate them into labour market or other services. Social care services for adults for instance are also dealing with insufficient capacity.

There is not only work – there are life and opportunities, too.

Stay in ARPIDA shall not be the last chance people with disabilities were provided with.

Motivated by the above challenge, ARPIDA founded a new NGO founded called Aditus Pro. It is a social therapeutic workshop that seeks to encourage the creativity of disabled people. These people are trained in a practical school and can employ their newly learned skills at the Aditus Pro workshop.

ARPIDA coordinate and tailor to their students of the last year of practical school in order to achieve the highest possible level of independence and self-sufficiency, thereby ensuring full work and social integration upon leaving the protected environment for normal adult life.

Participants made a visit to a coffee shop Kavárna JINÝ SVĚT that employs clients from ARPIDA. These employees work in this coffee shop 3 days per week. As mentioned before, the employment of disabled people is one of the most challenging issues. To face this challenge, Kavárna JINÝ SVĚT recruit these people with mental, physical or psychological disabilities and deploy them in the shop according to their ability and training. The owner highlighted that the coffee shop’s  number of clients significantly increase since they started to recruit the ARPIDA clients. Social media played an important role in the promotion of this company’s profile. Although Kavárna JINÝ SVĚT is not an social enterprise, it is an enterprise with a strong emphasis on social values and it shows us that the social economy can work and contribute to society with enough passion.