The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Spain blind association puts disabled to work Posted: 23 Jan 2014 12:01 AM PST His prospects changed dramatically, however, when he knocked on the door of Spain's national association for the blind. The organisation – known as ONCE by its Spanish acronym – put Velesar to work in 1990 selling tickets for its daily lottery and provided him with a seeing eye dog once he became completely blind. He has earned enough at the job to buy an apartment and support his wife, whom he met through ONCE and who is also blind, and their six-year-old daughter. "I am very grateful, because thanks to the sale of the tickets I have been able to raise a family, I have a stable job that is very dignified," Velesar said as he bantered with a steady stream of clients at his heated sales booth located by a metro exit in Madrid's bustling Manuel Becerra square. "I have been able to have a very normal life. I don't know what my life would be like without ONCE," added Velesar, who has retinitis pigmentosa, an inherited degenerative eye disease. He is one of 20,000 lottery ticket sellers employed by ONCE across the country, all of them visually impaired or with some other disability. ONCE was founded 75 years ago with the goal of helping blind people work for a living and not become dependent on public support. It has since expanded its mandate to help people with any type of disability. Last year, ONCE won the Prince of Asturias Concord prize, regarded as Spain's Nobel prize, the jury citing its 'extraordinary' work, which "enhanced the dignity and quality of life of millions of disabled people in Spain". Other international initiatives have followed ONCE's example, the prize jury added. ONCE finances itself through the sale of tickets for its own lottery which has annual sales of about 1.9 billion euros (RM8.7 billion). Half the money goes to prizes and the rest is spent on providing services ranging from employment to rehabilitation and specialised education. 'Great weight off the state' Aside from employing ticket sellers, ONCE owns fully or in part 29 firms that hire disabled people and it lobbies businesses to take on workers. Among its companies is a news agency, an industrial laundry, a hotel chain and temp agency that supplies cleaners and security guards to offices. ONCE created 7,100 jobs for disabled people last year even as Spain's jobless rate hit 26% as the country struggled with the fallout from the collapse of a decade-long property bubble in 2008. It employs just over 65,000 people in total. "I think we have taken a great weight off of the state administration. We have based our model on being active people, of living from our own efforts," said ONCE president Miguel Carballeda who began his career at the organisation as a lottery ticket seller. The strategy aims to leverage people's abilities, "with the idea that we should be valued for what we have and not for what we lack," he said. ONCE also provides training to help disabled people more employable. It translates textbooks into braille for those attending university and it operates a physiotherapy school for blind students, whose graduates are in high demand. Classes are smaller than at other physiotherapy schools in Spain to give students more hours of hands-on practice. A maximum of 24 students graduate from the school each year and all of them find work in their field after completing the four-year degree. Graduates are successful not because blind people have a better sense of touch as many people mistakenly believe, but because they receive a higher level of training than those at other schools, the director of the school, Javier Sainz de Murieta, said. "They either get extra training or else the whole world will prefer someone without a disability," he said. Isabel Chacon, who will graduate from the school in May, said the school had given her a new sense of direction since she lost her vision six years ago due to complications from diabetes. "I am really happy. Its a great feeling helping patients," the 33-year-old said. – AFP, January 23, 2014. |
| Young DJ set to be first black African in space Posted: 22 Jan 2014 11:37 PM PST From the dusty district of Mabopane, near Pretoria, 25-year-old Maseko has landed a coveted seat to fly 103-kilometres into space in 2015, after winning a competition organised by a US-based space academy. He beat a million other entrants from 75 countries to be selected as one of 23 people who will travel on an hour-long sub-orbital trip on the Lynx Mark II spaceship. The former civil engineering student – who was forced to put his studies on hold because he could not pay the fees – will experience zero gravity and a journey that normally comes with a US$100,000 (RM 335, 110) price tag – and is on course to become the first black African to enter space. The 'typical township boy', who still lives at home with his parents and four siblings, was named one of the winners on December 5, only a few hours after the death of the country's first black president, Nelson Mandela. In his exhilaration, he also imagined a conversation with Mandela. "I have run the race and completed the course, now here is the torch," Maseko said he thought the president would have told him. " 'Continue running the race and here's the title to go with it'." Improbable journey His improbable journey from a middle-class township to the thermosphere began with a leap from a wall. The initial entry requirement for the competitors was to submit a photograph of themselves jumping from any height. His first choice was the roof of his parents' three-bedroom house but his mother Ouma said 'no', fearing it was too high and that he would break his legs. He settled for the house's two-metre (more than six feet) perimeter wall and a friend captured the feat using a mobile phone. The picture has helped propel Maseko, who works part-time as a DJ at parties, to new heights. He finally secured his seat on the rocket after gruelling physical and aptitude tests in the contest organised by AXE Apollo Space Academy and sponsored by Unilever and space tourism firm Space Expedition Corporation (SXC). It was a dream come true for a man from a humble background. His family says they never doubted the one-time altar boy at a local Anglican church, who now sings with a local township gospel choir, would be a high-flier. "While I was pregnant with Mandla, I knew I was going to give birth to a star," said Maseko's mother. His 18-year-old sister Mhlophe agrees: "I don't know what comes after space. I'm sure if there was something he would go." Born to a school cleaner and an auto tool maker in Soshanguve township near Pretoria, Maseko has neighbours high-fiving him for putting South Africa's townships on the 'galactic map'. His long-term plans are to study aeronautical engineering and qualify as a space mission specialist with the ultimate dream of planting the South African flag on the moon. South Africa's Science and Technology Minister, Derek Hanekom sees Maseko "as a role model to the future generation of space professionals and enthusiasts." His experience could not have come at a better time "when Africa is gearing up its space ambitions" as host to the world's biggest and most powerful radio astronomy telescope, said Hanekom. The director of that project, Bernie Fanaroff, also hailed young Maseko as an ambassador for science. "Anything that raises the profile of science up there must be good because it brings to the attention of young people what they can achieve in science and engineering." Curious young neighbours often stop Maseko's 13-year-old sister Mantombi on her way home from school and ask, "What is space? What is space?" "A very unique place," she tells them. "Space is a very special place." Maseko spent a week at the Kennedy Space Academy in Florida where he skydived and undertook air combat and G-force training. While there he met and posed for pictures with US astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who was the second man ever to set foot on the moon after Neil Armstrong as part of the 1969 Apollo 11 space mission. For Maseko, the encounter was magical. "This is how it feels to be out in space," he recalls thinking. – AFP, January 23, 2014. |
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