Crear Unidos: Labor inclusion for PwID

Committed with labor inclusion of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (PwID), due the historical prejudice and exclusion, besides the worldwide economic trends with work insecurity through the rise in fixed-term, zero-hour contracts and temporary work. High competition has resulted in increasing position requirements based on qualifications and previous work experience, where PwID are particularly vulnerable; and clearly Colombia reflects these trends in a deeper way

Our first solution has been based in professional supports during all inclusion process, not only to the person itself and families, but as well as in the companies and communities they are being part of, to improve their quality of life and self-determination. But we realised that for some of them is harder to achieve this than for others, so we created Café Crear Unidos, as our second solution to provide real-life work training, employment and supported transition to a regular job through ICT help.

There is lack of training without real-life work internships and job opportunities for PwID. Based in the last census (2018) there are around 16.234 people with this disability in our region; also, the characterization for disability public policy found that 54% of PwD have no income, 24.6% have an income of less than $145 USD per month and 33% do not work due to permanent disability, being left out of earning a pension. Regarding the educational sector, 43% of people registered in the Rlcpd consider that the educational service does not respond to their learning needs, due to the poor adaptation of the infrastructure; likewise, public spaces for movement and interaction have restrictions on access. So the big problem that we are trying to solve is the labor exclusion of PwID due to low proper education and working opportunities. This kind of exclusions is combined with factors that result in much greater social isolation and lack of interaction with non-disabled people, which creates prejudiced social attitudes and expectations, reduced social, educational and recreational opportunities, and skill deficits associated with both factors outlined above and as a function of intellectual disability.

Our Solution through Café Crear Unidos is to generate employment and real-life work experience opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities through a social enterprise, offering training programs in digital skills to facilitate a cognitive accessibility, in soft skills and technical skills in kitchen work, barista coffee-making and customer service, that are specially adapted with education methodologies for them to offer  apprenticeships and employment. 

The technology we will use (back from Colombian lockdown due to COVID-19) are based on Total Communication and Easy Reading techniques to provide cognitive accessibility for our students, interns, employees and customers with all kinds of disabilities, introduced in 2 technological applications in our real-life work environment in the coffee shop, installed in digital tablets and cashier, in order to take customer orders and prepare those in the most user friendly way. Both applications will be linked to our hosting and domain: crearunidos.org , with programming language Android 9.0 and using the google Firebase. For the mid term we are planning to develop an e-commerce in which we can upload to sell on-line our coffee bags, merchandising and other products of entrepreneurs with disabilities with the aim to support and advertise their ventures.   

The population we work with are youth and adults with intellectual disabilities such as down syndrome, autism, learning difficulties, and other syndromes; from the ages of 14 and above, who has the dream to get a job, to help their families economically, and buy their own things in order to feel more independence; but who have found it difficult due to the prejudice in society (especially in the open labor market) about their capacities to perform well in a real work space, besides, have the need to improve their technical and soft skills in order to be more autonomous and achieve their dream to get a job.

To understand their needs we work under a Person Centred Planning model where the person's life project and dreams are the center and beginning of a path to be followed their support´s persons.  

Through our solution we seek to address their educational, labour inclusion and economic needs as well as improve the societal views that stigmatize and devalue this demographic; by recognizing their right of employment for self-worth, independence, in a way that would empower them in order to get individual and family standard of living, better quality of life and civic participation.

Answering to your question: How can marginalized populations access and create good jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves? we can express that our superior aim is to empower and support life projects and economic stability of this marginalized people in Colombia that is youth and adults with intellectual disabilities either facilitating labor inclusion to the open market, training them to develop soft and durable skills through a scalable process to employ some directly, or encouraging and supporting them to create their own business always including their support circles (families, fiends, community, professionals...).

Café Crear Unidos is an innovative solution because we are co creating (with public and private allies) a new business model in our region in which we put together educational methodologies, with a growing comercial trend (like coffee market is) and technology for cognitive accessibility, looking to achieve labor training, inclusion, employment and work experience at the same time we aim to increase social awareness and challenge stereotypes through developing a comprehensive social startup open to the community, that offers top quality coffee products and services by people with learning disabilities. Besides, we not only consider the accessibility for this kind of disability as our trainees or employees, but also for customers that may have other disabilities like deaf people, blind people and reduced mobility, considering both physical as cognitive accessibility with technology support. 

Among the NGOs, with similar programs, there is one with many years of experience called Los Alamos. But in Crear Unidos we are working differently and innovating because  we execute the Person Centered Planning model, to design meaningful Life Projects with each one of the users with ID, so they are the ones who decide which are their goals in the short term and dreams in the long, to be achieved, with the support of their families and professionals as mediators. This is innovative because some of these NGOs often create occupational workshops or dedicate themselves to making products as a means of subsistence, blurring the real interests and capacities of each person with ID.

As our solution is a new business model in Colombia, it relies on technology for the implementation of Total Communication and Easy Reading techniques to provide cognitive accessibility for our students, interns, employees and customers with all kinds of disabilities, especially intellectual disabilities.

The coffee itself was already working (before Pandemic) in its training sections to a group of 50 students with ID, all strengthening their soft skills, 20 of those acquiring technical skills in cooking, 16 in customer service and 6 in barismo (coffee making), and have been operating with customers under pilot tests.

By introducing 2 software applications, installed in digital tablets and in the cashier, to take customer orders and prepare those in the most user friendly way. It works like this as an example: "one of our waiters will approach a customer, taking a digital tablet with him, our Menu will appear on it with customisable options (might be bigger images, have differents kinds of contrast, easy reading text, pictograms...) according to his abilities. He will take the order and when press "OK", the order will appear immediately into the Barista or Cooks digital screens, which also may have customisable options and will remind him the step by step to prepare that order, if needed".

Applications will be linked to our hosting and domain, with programming language Android 9.0 and using the google Firebase.

Although our applications have not been fully developed, here is this TEDx Talks video that supports the importance of making digital developments accessible to people with disabilities:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wb2X9kYEvXc

And this academic paper which refers to the importance of cognitive accessibility in electronic communication specifically for persons with intellectual (cognitive) disabilities:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10209-014-0351-6

Outputs:

50 people with Intellectual disabilities fully trained for labour inclusion, in Soft, digital and technical skills for work

Generate 5 initial employment positions for service users in the first stage. 

Design a model for an inclusive and productive social enterprise in a Colombian context that can be shared with and replicated by other organizations. 

Outcomes:

Based on the Quality of Life Model -QoL- (Shalock y Verdugo, 2014) we set a base a line of the 8 domains referred on this (1. emotional well-being, 2 interpersonal relations, 3. material well-being, 4. personal development, 5. physical well-being, 6. self-determination, 7. social inclusion, 8. Rights)*.

After the 10 months training which includes practical experiences in the coffee real workplace ant the proper follow up of their technical, digital and soft skill achievements we can measure again the changes in the QoL Domains, expecting to observe a considerable improvement in their: Self-Determination, Personal development, emotional well-being and interpersonal relations domains in most of them. 

In the long term outcomes we expect to observe a higher improvement in all the same domains mention before as well in their Material well-being, Social inclusion and Rights domains, especially in those who will be employed directly by the café and in the ones which will get to obtain a labor inclusion in the open market. We also expect to see and improvement of the Quality of life of their families that will perceive their increase of independence, and their support to family economy. And finally we expect a positive impact in our nearest community that can be beneficiary of a natural space that allow social interaction between people with and without disabilities which may reduce the levels of prejudice regarding capacities and social inclusion.

*Schalock, R. & Verdugo, M. (2014). Quality of life as a change agent. Int Public Health. 6(2), 105-117.

Currently: 50 user with Intellectual Disabilities, 200 families and community members

In one year: 80 user with Intellectual Disabilities. 320 family members and 2000 coffee shop customers.

In five years: 150 user with Intellectual Disabilities. 600 family members and 5000 coffee shop customers.

We expect the training program can be expanded: the number of training beneficiaries to grow to 80 after 2 years and 150 after 5 years, as the capacity of the enterprise grows. The place and brand recognizing will be set in the top of mind of our customer and close community as a multi-use place, open and accessible to all kinds of diversity, with a high quality products and services.

We also expect that Café Crear Unidos, as a business unit, will be profitable in order to reinvest those profits in the necessary improvements, training more users. After 5 year we also expect to consider the opening of a second branch in a different sector of the Aburrá Valley (maybe Medellín).

Related to our business model for Café Crear Unidos the bigger barrier we had at the beginning was to obtain the financial support to fix and equip the coffee house, which took us quite a long time to finally open to the public. Also we have barriers to implement the technology to cognitive accessibility as sooner as we would like. Even though it is concept proved, the finances to access to all the technological appliances and developments has taken longer.

For the next five years we consider that our main barriers are the cultural prejudice in society, with which some people may have an idea of exclusion  and won't be interested in visiting our coffee shop. And from the labor inclusion point of view, in few companies may remain those prejudices about the capacities of people with learning disabilities to perform well in a real work space, what makes it harder to support our users to achieve their dream to get a job.

Regarding the financing and project management for the implementation of the technology the plan is to make exchange alliances with informatic developers that also have social and educational initiatives with other marginal population in which they want to train them to become web designers and technology developers, at the same time they implement the application we need in Café Crear Unidos. Also to apply to social investments and grants, or look for social donations to big technology companies that may provide the electronic appliances needed for this project.

Regarding the cultural prejudice about people with learning disabilities we will carry own with our inclusion model, in which we not only work with the person and the family members, but also doing sensibilization meetings to companies employees and different kinds of society groups regarding the capacities and proper way to interact with people with intellectual disabilities. 

-

Full time staff: 11

Part time staff: 1

Contractors: 3

Regarding the coordinator team, we are an interdisciplinary group of people co-creating from different points of view and expertise: Erika Isaza, the General Director is a Special Need Educator, with 25 years of work experience with people with disabilities, from which 17 has been in Crear Unidos; Juan David Bustamante, the producer units coordinator is a Business Manager with 10 years of work experience as Point of Sales and supply chain Manager in a large brand of supermarkets, with 4 years of experience as independent entrepreneur of food and beverages shops, during 3 years was a volunteer in Crear Unidos in the logistic services educational program, now, he has been during 1 year the commercial leader of Café Crear Unidos; and I Eliana Gómez as the Commercial and Cooperation Director, have a Social Inclusion and Disabilities Master, also a Business Manager, with 5 years of working experience as academic researcher and co-author of 2 books about sustainable Labor Inclusion of PwDisabilities, 2 years as volunteer in Coleg Elidyr, Camphill Community, Wales, UK, Educational and Residence Center for youth  with Learning Disabilities, and chair university professor in human development and social education; sister on Felipe, one of Crear Unidos´s student, with Down Syndrome. 

As part of our team we also have: 

1 Training coordinator with 35 years of experience working with PwD

2 special needs educational support teachers

2 psychologist

1 Barista (coffee making), cooking and customer service teacher).

2 support monitors

Besides the administrative and general services co-workers. 

To speak of the Inclusion of People with Intellectual Disabilities is to speak of Community Participation and Social Interaction; through joint work with various entities of the public sector that provides us with different cultural, artistic and educational city spaces and the support of qualified professionals; also through agreements with private companies that have opened their doors to work training and for labor inclusion, is that we have achieved that our comprehensive training program can have a projection towards the type of inclusion that each one of our users wants to achieve in their life projects.

International alliances have also been achieved with the AMPANS Foundation in Barcelona, thanks to which much more innovative and inclusive work models have been strengthened, as well as formulating Café Crear Unidos unit.

Also, the partnership with the major municipality assigned the house where runs the coffee shops under an administration model to promote this inclusion purpose. 

With SENA (National Learning Service) had provided some of the training technical courses.

Impact Hub Medellín and its 2030 Impact program which is an incubator for startups that impact the Sustainable Development Goals. 

LA CHAPOLERA coffee farm which is our allied to provide our own coffee brand and also to include a turism program into the farm grounds. 

Bolivar Davivienda (Bank) foundation, social investor when Café Crear Unidos was just a project. 

SODIMAC, HOMECENTER, was our allied to equip the coffee house, through a social donation of some of the furnitures and kitchen utensils. 

As direct beneficiaries we clearly have youth and adults with ID, for which we have express how this program impact their Quality of life, but as indirect beneficiaries we also have their families who also perceive an improvement in their quality of life when they can see that their family member with disability is more independent and can contribute economically to the economy of the family nucleus. Also we impact indirectly our closer community which have express in their own words "it will have a positive impact on us in order to provide a community space in which neighbours and families can get together in a natural environment and get the chance to feel part of a social initiative and open their minds to diversity", "Thanks to CREAR UNIDOS, I have been able to raise my children’s awareness of respect for difference".

As customers, our market niche are people with ages between 25 and 60 years, professionals, employees, freelancers or entrepreneurs, with medium-high income, who are looking for quiet coworking space or just a place where to take a break. A person with a high social sense, with an affinity for craftsmanship and the "handmade" stamp. Millennials are a large portion of the target audience, that allow themselves new experiences. People that has a fondness for the traditional, the indigenous, with artisanal preparation methods. Also foreign and national tourists with interests in regional gastronomy and Colombian culture, socially conscious.

Café Crear Unidos is planned to be a profitable business unit by itself as this includes the selling of products and services related to a coffee place. We are just looking boost for this first stage of the project to finish successfully the training of our first group of users while the coffee brand obtains a natural recognition and loyal customers. That is why this project has a long-term scope and is intended to increase its capacity over time, with more students trained per year, including people from the wider community. As we are a non-profit organization, we will re-investment all profits into Café Crear Unidos and training programs.

Besides this is important to say that Crear Unidos as a work and training entity has been financing itself through the selling of educational programs, with sustained donations of companies and natural people, raising social investments and signing public contracts.

As Café Crear Unidos is in an early stage, with a prototype of the business model that has been functioning under pilots test and in which we still need a boost to improve the implementation of the technology that will support the training, internships and employment of our users with intellectual disability, we consider that by applying to the Solve challenge we can obtain, from one side a financing source that will promote acceleration of the technology implementation, as well as provide a worldwide recognition of our practice, specially in other Latin American or in developed Countries that does have to many labor inclusion practices for PwID. 

We think we have traveled a path where our beneficiaries recognize and thank for the impact we have had on their lives and on the well-being of their families; believing that these testimonies and our work can have an echo in those countries, so that more people with disabilities can feel that their lives have relevance in society and that entities like ours are willing to accompany them in their projects life in a professional way, to achieve comprehensive development and inclusion.

Funding Revenue model: we expect to achieve a escalable point in which our business model can be replicable through branches in different cities of Colombia, and why no different countries. 

Board members or advisors: There different NGOs in the US and Europe with an important experience regarding labor inclusion and relevant practices regarding PwID, as well as Coffee Shops, restaurants and other business units with similar initiatives. We would like that professionals from this kind of organisations can advise us!

Marketing, media, exposure: will give us a boost of social recognition that may help us to accelerate the Coffee shop and the interest of new users.

Social investors.
NGOs working towards SDG 10: reduce inequalities, SDG 8: decent work and economic growth and SDG 17: partnerships for the goals related to Intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Coffee places in differents countries that might be interested in use our coffee bags to support our enterprise and the employment of more people with ID.

We know from other similar initiatives of Coffee places that include PwLD like Bitty & Beau’s Coffee in the US and CaféJoyeux in Paris.

Some of our users are adults with intellectual disablites that never have had the chance to work, or even prepare for it. 

Our programme gives them the chance to be traind in soft, durable technical and digital skills, and to be empoyed in our coffee shop or transit to the open market when they will be included with the support of our labor inclusion model where we prepare the person, his or her family, as well the company to be a succesfull ans sustainable inclusion.