Upon arrival at White Lake (40 km from Brest), after settling in at the numbers of the tourist base "White Lake", a meeting was held with 15 young disabled people from 6 districts of the Brest region, who have been working for 4 years on the basis of LLC "Center for Youth Initiative" BOMOO "Disabled and Environment" as part of community service work.
The exhibition selling young children was received with approval. Meeting with tea in a cafe, where the guys prepared an educational program for the guests of the seminar. And in the evening, together with volunteers from the Chernavchitsy secondary school, the “Overcoming” theater of the BOMOO “Disabled and Wednesday” showed the play “World of Love” from the cycle of the environmental program “Chorny poplau” against the burning of dry grass in the spring-autumn period in the Brest region.
On the second day 03/30/2007 FRIDAY in the premises of the Beloe Lake tourist base
from 9.30 plenary work began in 2 sections (group of 15 people)
- 1 section. Improving the legislative framework in the field of labor rehabilitation of disabled people under the leadership of Borisov V.V.
- Section 2. Forms and methods of social cooperation under the leadership of I.V. Shmyga.
Problems of social cooperation were raised at the sections.
1 PROBLEM. About 10 million people live in the Republic of Belarus. Of these, 340,857 are disabled. In our Brest region there are 60,334 disabled people under 30 years old, about 4,500 people. A significant portion of the young people with physical and mental disabilities with whom we worked, more than 90%, do not have an additional source of income other than a disability pension (an average of $25). Although about 30% of them have high creative potential and about 50% showed satisfactory abilities. The level of disability pension in Belarus drives young people into limits and does not allow them to develop comprehensively. The situation is even worse for those children who are in boarding schools, where they receive only 10% of the accrued pension. As a result, young disabled people find themselves in severe dependence on their parents or the state. Their initiative in such conditions is reduced to zero.
2 PROBLEM. Many government and public organizations offer their services for employment and job training for young people with disabilities. But with one condition, you need permission from a special state medical commission on working ability to determine the category of disability. For the 1st and 2nd disability groups, work is contraindicated and therefore not permitted. These groups have benefits (free travel on public transport, telephones, slightly higher pensions, etc.) Therefore, young disabled people do not want to move to the 3rd group, so as not to lose benefits, but at the same time they want to work and have a profession. Social cooperatives are designed for young people with disabilities who want to be useful in the family or in society and gain the basics of accessible professions, regardless of the disability group.
3 PROBLEM When preparing the “Regulations on the procedure for organizing and conditions of paid public service work,” a very important clarification was missed in paragraph 14 after the words: “social protection” there is no expansion of “disabled people using labor.”
4 PROBLEM Our legislation does not contain the concepts of social economy and social cooperatives.
Based on the problems listed above, the second day of the seminar was aimed at solving the needs of a layer of young disabled people who want to work, who want to change their lives, who “woke up” and got rid of the “four walls” complex, who want to be as useful as possible to society, to other people living in the same house, village, city, district, region.
Lawyer Sergey Smirnov and director of TsMI LLC V.V. Borisov actively participated in the work of the first section. and Klesnikov V.P.. They, together with the directors of territorial centers, discussed the current situation regarding the employment of disabled people and proposed to introduce amendments to the legislative framework on these issues to the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus through the Committee on Labor and Social Protection of the Population of the Brest Regional Executive Committee. Moreover, it became known that in August 2007, at a scheduled meeting of the regional executive committee, the issue of the activities of the Pruzhany and Luninets territorial centers for social protection of the population was considered.
In the second section there was an opportunity to get acquainted with the activities of a social cooperative, led by a guest from Sweden, Haekan Uhlin. We learned more about the work of Ukrainian colleagues on the rehabilitation of disabled people through the prism of the theory of survival in extreme conditions with the emergence of additional superpowers in difficult situations. Maxim Moroz once again discovered innovative methods for creating and forming social cooperatives. After short speeches by each participant in the second section, a proposal was made for the final plenary session.
11.00 - The final plenary meeting took place in the conference hall of the White Lake tourist base. It summed up the work of the two sections of the seminar and made proposals regarding the organization of social cooperatives in the Brest region.
1. Initiate from the public and take an active part in the creation of the Decree or resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus “On Social Enterprise” in order to meet the needs of people with disabilities, combine all benefits and finance social enterprises from the state.
2. Jointly create a coordination council with the participation of the state and public sectors on this problem with a recommendatory function
3. To submit a proposal to the Council of Ministers, through the Committee on Labor and Social Services of the Population of the Brest Regional Executive Committee, for changes to the “Regulations on the procedure for organizing and conditions for carrying out paid public works” in paragraph 14 after the words: “social protection” to be supplemented with the words: “or disabled people using labor” and further in the text.
4. Ask Swedish partners to organize and conduct training on writing grants related to joint projects for social cooperatives in Belarus and Sweden.
5. Summarize and accept the experience of Lapekh I.G. coordinator for the Brest and Grodno regions of the AGA program on the creation of clubs for adults.
6. Organize lectures on the problems of survival in extreme conditions.
7. Create a training center based on Sputnik based on the experience of social cooperatives in Brest, Sweden, and Poland with the involvement of specialists.
12.30 – After a discussion and speech by representatives of the regional executive committee, directors of centers from Kobrin and Brest, the seminar was closed by Shmyga I.V. thanking all participants for their active and fruitful work.
According to the experience of our organization, labor rehabilitation and adaptation of young disabled people should be combined with art, theater, ecology, and ecotourism. Man does not live by bread alone. Increasing activity in society, destroying stereotypes of people with disabilities. These are far-reaching goals.
As social cooperatives, we set ourselves the goal of uniting the efforts of public organizations, government agencies, and proactive people with disabilities to achieve an integrated approach to the issues of labor rehabilitation of a specific group of young disabled people from 17 to 35 years old. Try to create social workshops in cities and districts of the Brest region at territorial public service centers with normal conditions for labor rehabilitation of unemployed disabled people. To do this, equip rented premises for the stay of disabled people, attract specialists to work in the workshop, including experts, psychologists, technologists, teachers, lawyers, medical workers and young volunteers.
On a sponsorship basis, in the course of work, set up equipment and begin to form an environment in the Brest region of specialists who will begin to introduce comprehensive approaches to issues of labor rehabilitation
Today, workshops like those in Brest are the only chance for many young people with disabilities in Belarus to have a job and participate in public life. But these works, on the one hand, are temporary for a year, on the other hand, their organization requires additional resources for the purchase of equipment, repair of premises, renting it, bank expenses, organizational expenses, attracting specialists and experts to work with people with disabilities. The Employment Service Department covers the labor costs only for disabled people (50-60 euros per month and small costs for materials). Therefore, for normal work, there was a need to attract help from grant providers.
Reasons for attracting grantmakers:
1. Lack of experience in our association of this work.
2. There is a need to competently organize the technological process in practice, from the preparation of clay to the final firing in the kiln and analysis of this production.
3. Development of samples and forms with consultation of the technological process is required.
4. Organization of new activities for disabled people such as artistic products, for example, made of glass.
5. The knowledge of the involved specialists and Swedish experience will improve the quality, which will serve as an opportunity to introduce elements of cost accounting when carrying out work and attracting financial resources.
Expected result: Widespread employment of people with psycho-physical disabilities. Improving the quality of competitive products produced by the unemployed. Equal participation of young people in the public life of the state.
Thanks to 5 years of experience, it will also be possible to prepare recommendations for everyone who wants to work in this direction and employment centers for the further employment of unemployed disabled people.
The report is accompanied by a disk with 123 photographs and videos of reports in Brest and footage of the seminar on White Lake.