We, people with disabilities, can and want to be emancipated and live independently!
WHY A CO-OPERATIVE?
The current state of employment is more than 317.625 unemployed people. The needs of individuals and families and the possibility of meeting such needs are increasingly problematic. Due to the unscrupulousness of the job market, it is getting more difficult to find the magic key, but not impossible.
For people with disabilities it is even more difficult to find their place in such a market. Apart from having a reduced working ability, people with disabilities are not able to compete with healthy individuals and this leads to depression and conviction that they are really neither capable nor useful; that they do not know and are not needed. This is when they become real invalids, dependent upon their fellow-creatures and the social welfare of the community. Their families also succumb to the pressure of everyday life and the burden of the disabled; hence all family members soon become depressed and overfatigued and cannot find by themselves new, let alone original, solutions to earn sufficient money for daily needs. This is how their human dignity in its very essence is threatened. From this position, it seems impossible to restore your dignity, acquire self-confidence and independence.
In Croatia there are about 10% of citizens with disabilities and children with developmental disabilities. According to some surveys and analyses, in Istria is to expect from around 7% up to 15,000 people with disabilities. Only a minority of them works and has a relatively secure existence. Under the presumption that 10% (1,500) of these people are capable of working, even if just a little bit, in any way, and anything, then the justifiability arises of making efforts to allow them to be far more successful in achieving better results on their way to attaining independence and economic security. Things that people with disabilities do at home as a hobby, a pastime for fun, manufacturing relatively small quantities of unverified quality, can always be transformed into business and profit can be generated. Yet, this is feasible only within an organized community. It is a part of human nature and the right of every person to become financially independent. For our target people it is far more difficult to achieve independence because of permanent health damage, mental, physical or combined disabilities, everyday hardship and the current political, economic and social circumstances. Many of them are prematurely retired or depend on social welfare, but the majority is supported by their families.
The only acceptable model of entrepreneurship for us is the co-operative movement as a way of private business initiatives of physical persons (entrepreneurs) with small and/or temporary businesses.
The co-operative helps its members reduce the initial investment and risks and achieve better raw material acquisition costs. Through the co-operative they are provided with low-cost accounting and bookkeeping services; they have full autonomy in financial and material transactions, applying methods that they personally consider most useful; they enter the market without any risk of violating the law. Based on their volume of turnover achieved through the co-operative, they are entitled to receive a pro rata portion of the profit generated independently by the co-operative. These and many other are the excellent reasons to be members of the co-operative. It is up to every single co-operative member to decide on how active and creative he will be and how much he is willing to work for himself and his family. We are now mostly (with a few honourable exceptions) dependent on social welfare, pensions, disability pensions, various allowances and charity, but we could be important factors for ourselves, our families and country, and create a situation where we could contribute to other people rather than being supported.
This figure is to be taken with a grain of salt, because it is a date from far before the recession. There are more and more unemployed people in Croatia every day. More about on: Index HR - Vijesti
