Wanwazir's Story

During the period of 1-9June 2019, my Thai team which was me and another two Thai representatives has been selected by VSA (Volunteer Spirit Association) to participate in young Social Innovators project which was held in Zadar, Croatia.

The program has run smoothly throughout the time with collaboration of another 8 partners from all across the world.

There were tons of knowledges we have learned during the seminar and many interesting topics were also discussed at the same time. One of my impressive topics were about the opportunity of work of disabled people. Briefly, a person with a disability, or handicap, can be defined as someone with a physical or mental impairment, which has a substantial or long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

One of the social innovation projects which had attracted my attention the most was about ’Hedona Ltd., Chocolaterie’ company. The company was founded by the association of disabled people in the spring of 2013 under the project ‚Chocolateria Cris -Krizevacka’. The main activity of the company is the production of chocolate and chocolate pralines. Their company has been present in the home market for two years but what makes it different from other similar enterprises is the fact that it is a social enterprise which mostly employs disabled people. The company’s priority orientation is towards socially beneficial good and the wellbeing of every employee and a continuous opportunity for development of the employees and the company itself.  All the profits are reinvested back into employees; into growing their competences and their satisfaction and into new job opportunities and the company’s technological development as well as the expansion of the company’s activities. Hedona Ltd., social enterprise operates according to the highest standards and uses food safety management system based on the principles of HACCP.

As seeing from Thailand’s initiative of disabled group, it can be said that this kind of activity has started to gain more attention in society (even though it is not as popular as in Croatia). One of example that is known in Thailand is disabled people association of Ban Krang, Nonthaburi, this association has been formed for almost 10 years (in 2007). Disabled people association of Ban Krang is mainly founded to gather a group of people with disabilities to help the disabled people the method of living in society happily and equally even there are different.

The main task is to empower and create encouragement in themselves, such as bringing disabled people to do some activities in public and to create power and cultivate the sense of confidence in themselves. Overall, the goal is to bring them out in order to let them learn the means of living in society. Meanwhile, when the grouping occurs, there must have some expenses in order to support the ongoing activities. Therefore, they have decided to make some products for sale. The products that they have produced are dishwashing liquid, laundry detergent and floor cleaner. What makes their products become special is chemical free and made from 100% natural, with the main ingredient is bergamot Flavoring with lemongrass and eucalyptus. They were helped and led by Ajarn Surangkhana Na Nakorn, a lecture from Turakitbandit University who visited and pushed them to initiate in this project, the profits they have received are being utilized into two parts. The first part is spent on the area surveying. Which is bringing disabled people who are still on the bed house (less interact to society) and teach them some skills of living in society and strengthen their soul. And the other half is for hiring disabled people in order to make and sell ongoing products and improve the quality of their production.

In my opinion, disability is one of the most important issues in the contemporary society because stigmatization of people with disabilities contributed to the formation of biases and prejudices which put them into the disadvantageous position compared to people, who did not have problems of disability. Such biases and prejudices contributed to the discrimination of people with disabilities which has been eliminated consistently since the emergence of the Civil Rights movement and introduction of legal changes, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. For me, people with disabilities need to have opportunity to work and live in community equally as normal person as it is a human basic need that everyone should have been treated equally, more activities such as above (the project I have written both in Croatia and Thailand) must be more given attention, support and equality by people in society so they will be able to live their life as equal as normal people. It doesn’t matter what you look like on the outside, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.