LABOUR-ARGENTINA: Job Security for Disabled

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 20 1999 (IPS) - A new lottery in Argentina will provide jobs over the next three years for some 10,000 people with physical disabilities, organisers say.

Already the ‘La Solidaria’ enterprise has employed 700 blind, deaf or and mobility impaired people since it began operations last month.

“Come try your luck in tomorrow’s La Solidaria,” calls lottery ticket seller Hector, who is 53-years-old, married with two children- and blind.

His sales strategy is not one that seeks pity. “I have worked since I was 18 as a street vendor but everyone pushed me away,” Hector told IPS between sales. Now Hector has stable work, a monthly salary of 430 dollars, social security and – best of all – “tranquillity.”

To get the job he took training courses in gaming and sales techniques offered by his new employer. They told him to forget about begging or looking for pity, “this is a job.”

La Solidaria originated with the Spanish firm GEJINSA (Integrated Games Management) which provides the financing in partnership with Argentina’s National Lottery. They were joined by former employees of ONCE (National Organisation of the Blind of Spain), which has run a similar lottery since 1938.

“The ONCE lottery in Spain is an exemplary institution, one of a kind, that employs 21,000 disabled people. This is the first time we have tried to develop something similar outside the country,” said Jose Manuel Dolader, former director of ONCE and current vice- president of La Solidaria in Buenos Aires.

In his office, capable and enthusiastic workers surround Dolader, approaching him with papers, transferring his telephone calls, maintaining his ever-changing agenda and participating in meetings. Many of them are in wheelchairs, blind, or missing a limb.

One of his closest collaborators is a former football player who, as the result of a traffic accident, is now in a wheelchair.

The only people who have not been given the opportunity to work have been mental patients or those people who would lose their disability pensions if they were to get a job.

“If we are not sure that this project is going to work, we cannot tell people to give up their pensions, which is all they have. But if they are able to postpone collecting their pension during the time they are working, then they are considered as candidates,” Dolader explained.

The driving force of La Solidaria is that a disabled person can do anything a “normal” person can do, said Dolader. Employees of La Solidaria must put in long and often stressful days on the street or in an office. For more than 80 percent of them it is their first job.

“Buy it here, buy it here…La Solidaria for just one peso,” shouts Martin Russo, 22, from his wheelchair where he has been confined since he was nine-years-old.

Martin has a secondary level education and wants to study journalism, but for now he is concentrating on doing well in his first job. “This keeps us active and gives us independence,” he declared.

What makes this business different from others is that its success depends on the country’s facilities for a project of this type. “It was very difficult to find a building that did not have obstacles for the disabled, one with wheelchair access, and where they could get on the elevator without problems,” said Martin.

Then it was difficult to find a provider of medical services for what will in the future be 10,000 disabled workers. The current challenge is to find a bank that will accept La Solidaria’s street vendors who need a place to “unload” money so they can avoid being robbed.

As a safety measure, workers are instructed not to accept bills of more than two pesos.

The experience of Cristina, who is 28-years-old, blind, and married with a three-year-old daughter, is a good sign of future success. Every day she arrives at an assigned area of the city to work and other people working at businesses on the corner already know her and she can turn to them for assistance.

Dolader, who worked at ONCE for 13 years, remembers that when he and his partners left Spain they decided to try setting up a similar enterprise in Latin America. After trying Mexico, Chile and Brazil, they decided on Argentina where they found the National Lottery was looking for partners to start a social project of this type.

In Argentina there are approximately 1.5 million people with various levels of disability out of a total population of 34 million.

Rodolfo, a La Solidaria vendor, 39 years old and father of five, told IPS that he had been a public employee, despite the fact he is blind, until 1992 when government layoffs began.

After that he sold things on the streets and worked at what jobs he could until he learned about this project. His new job gives him some peace of mind, though to maintain his large family requires more than what he earns.

“At least I have something, and if I sell more than 400 tickets per day, I win prizes,” he enthused.

GEJINSA’s goal is to expand La Solidaria throughout the country – currently the lottery tickets are sold only in the capital – and later to start up similar projects in other Latin American countries.

The sellers offer approximately 100,000 numbers, with five numbers per ticket. Each ticket is worth one peso – a dollar – and numbers are drawn every other day.

Prizes can reach 30,000 dollars, much less than the other lotteries such as Loto, Quiniela, or Bingo, which offer millions. But people still buy La Solidaria tickets.

The owners hope not only for profits – which are to be shared with the National Lottery – but also to create a corporation that, in addition to employing the disabled, will provide them with other services.

“Initially, we need to convince the government that this is also a social project and that with the money earned from La Solidaria they should eliminate obstacles so that disabled people can be integrated into city life,” he stressed.

“Today for you, tomorrow for me” reads La Solidaria’s publicity. The advertisements show vendors selling their lucky tickets throughout the city, wearing their green aprons and berets, the colour of hope.