A life to enjoy the joy of living together
Leadership Development Course 2009
Help that is right nearby
Town changes when people with disabilities go out on the town
A life to enjoy the joy of living together
Chiaki Shiba
Director of the sheltered workshop for persons with disabilities: “WITH”
There are people who cannot utilize their full capacities, even when they are extraordinarily talented. I have seen so many persons with disabilities under such conditions. I have kept wondering, ‘how can we allow their greatness to be buried like this?’ As a result, I have established a sheltered workshop for persons with visual impairment.
Train station staff learned how to assist people with disabilities and became more considerate
In April, 1996, a first small-scale sheltered workshop for persons with visual impairment in Japan opened in the town of Handa, a suburb of Hamamatsu-city.
Do you know what “sheltered workshop” is? It is a place where people who have difficulty getting a job due to physical or mental disabilities obtain job skills, whilst providing them with a place of work.
Our sheltered workshop is named “WITH” - it is a very small workshop where our motto is “all of us, people who have disabilities and those who are without disabilities, work together.” Currently we have six members here who commute to work everyday, four instructors, and many volunteers joyfully taking up various tasks.
Our main business is to design, produce and sell equipment, such as white canes, to be utilized by persons with visual impairment. Efforts here are primarily placed in the creation of white canes using only a small knife, sandpaper, hammers, etc.
The secondary business is the printing of Braille publications. We print Braille name cards, instructions on the use of electrical appliances, Braille tourist guides for sightseeing areas, etc. Persons with visual impairment themselves print such various materials with the use of computers. In the future, once everyone's skill and ability improves, we plan to undertake the printing of Braille publications for cities and prefectures.
We do not have many workers and revenue remains small, but we are trying to increase our capacity by all of us working together.
Also, as a small-scale workshop for persons with disabilities, our next goal is to become a base for welfare activities in the local community.
By having members with disabilities commute each day, the general public learns about the existence of those with disabilities and their attitude of self-sufficiency and, most apparently, their way of thinking about people with disabilities change little by little. Providing opportunities for local residents to come into contact with us through, say, a party or a bazaar, help change their perception toward persons with disabilities. We also offer exchange occasions with elementary and secondary school students in the area; having the chance to meet persons with disabilities when they are young naturally teaches them how to treat those people and make children realize that disabilities are not particularly unusual and persons with disabilities are also, of course, equal members of society.
Some members of our workshop commute by train over a long distance; when the same person with a white cane commutes on the same train everyday. Various people start to greet him or her. Treatment by the Japan Railway staff also becomes more considerate and such attention to service for other types of disability and the elderly becomes taken for granted. I believe when everyone, from child to grownup, employs a kind heart, a little more attention, and a learned skill to deal with persons with disabilities, it becomes a true welfare society.
Everyone gets older and becomes the disabled
The International Year of Disabled Persons, which began in 1981, provided incentives for persons with disabilities to proactively go out into society. As a result we - the elderly, the disabled, small children, or the pregnant woman - discovered how difficult the town we live in is to walk about. As a result, the Japanese government enacted, “The Act on Buildings Accessible and Usable by the Elderly and Physically Disabled (Heartful Building Law)” and every city nationwide has created their own, “Friendly town building ordinance.”
Many train stations and towns installed yellow Braille blocks as guides, which support independent walking for persons with visual impairment, and more ramps have been built to help wheelchair users to move around without asking for other person's assistance. Other hardware improvements have been making slow progress, such as the mandatory increase in the width of hallways to accommodate wheelchairs and the installation of elevators.
Nationwide, there are currently about three million people who have some type of disability; when we speak of the quality of life, we need to also consider the quality of life for those 3 millions. How often do you feel “I am happy to be alive” in daily life? I think we have to ponder what is normal and what is not normal for living like a human being - just like everyone else.
Staying inside the house all day, watching TV, feeling that you are merely a burden on your family and others is not a normal life. Getting out of the house, meeting many people, working if you can work, experiencing the many joys of life, feeling and sharing moving moments with others are the value of living life as human beings.
In order for persons with disabilities to casually go out into the town, improvement of the environment is necessary, but it also requires people who live in the town to, as a matter of course, assist the elderly or persons with disabilities.
Seeing persons with disabilities or the elderly who live nearby help us - and the government - to understand the genuine needs of those persons.
Everyone will have some type of disability when he or she gets old - vision and hearing are diminished, legs become weak. Consider this: persons with disabilities are those persons who happen to have those disabilities at an early stage of their lives.
We have to respect and take good care of the elderly as our seniors, but persons with disabilities can be considered more experienced in terms of physical and mental disability. Therefore, distinction between persons with and without disabilities might be meaningless. Any person can be a person with a disability sometime.
A society where people can naturally learn how to treat persons with disabilities
If we emphasize welfare measures for persons with disability by improving the ‘hardware’ side of building a disability-friendly town and a ‘software’ side of people's attitude that supports each other, we can be rest assured and ready for the super-elderly society we expect to become in this 21st century. A town that is friendly within which the elderly and persons with disabilities walk, live, and work should be a town that is easy for everyone, including healthy people, to do same. Please think about it while you walk about your town.
Our small sheltered workshop continues to have joyful work and exchange opportunities, thanks to the support of many people. However, we cannot remain as is; the sheltered workshop is, actually, supposed to be a transitional location and should have a next step. The ultimate point and purpose is to have them get a job at a company or become independent in society - unfortunately, that currently almost never happens.
We teach our members societal and work skills at the workshop, so we also need to strive to achieve more acceptances by society and companies of our members. We will have to ask for the further understanding and cooperation of companies for the employment of persons with disabilities.
Also, we have to think about the future of those with intellectual and physical disabilities after their parents pass away.
How do we create their living space before being employed? One of the big issues given to us is to solve the question of how they can live in “normal society” as human beings - without living in a special facility.
You, too, can probably find a small-scale sheltered workshop in your town. Please go; visit it at least once, I am sure you will find them cheerfully spending a happy time together.
