A total of €35 million will be invested by the government over the next six years in schemes and projects offering work to people with a disability.
Education Minister Evarist Bartolo briefly spoke about the project yesterday when he visited a sheltered workshop for disabled people at the former military hospital in Mtarfa.
The €1.7 million EU-funded workshop is run by the Employment and Training Corporation in collaboration with Inspire Foundation.
Mr Bartolo said the workshop was a “small step”, pointing out it was not “charity” but “social justice” and “human rights”. Only five per cent of disabled people in Malta were employed.
The Parliamentary Secretary for Rights of Persons with Disability and Active Aging, Justyne Caruana, said her office was working on a draft policy “to have a stronger representation” of disabled people on government boards to send out a clear message. “They will be able to have a stronger say in decisions that affect them,” she said.
She praised the sheltered workshop, saying it was the first step to opening doors for disabled people and thanked the employers for taking part.
The ETC received a total of 170 applications for the project. So far, 50 have been called in and, of these, 16 resigned. There are 111 people with a disability on the waiting list and, of these, 63 have already been subjected to an occupational therapy assessment and 48 are waiting.
The number of clients taking part will increase steadily over the next weeks. They are assisted by job coaches, trained by Inspire Foundation. Although the original target was for 25 job coaches, so far there are 12 with the last call for applications closing today.
A total of 21 employers are taking part in the scheme: Chiswick House School, Playmobil, Elepac, Vee Gee Bee, Mompalao Trading, Multi Packaging Ltd, Printwell, WasteServ, J&A Bonnici, Fildan Accessories, Thermoplastics, Methode, Uniplast, ASAG Plastics. Berger Paints, Maypole, Vodafone, Seifert, Quintano Foods, ELC and De La Rue Malta also take part in the scheme and the training takes place at their offices.