Intellectually impaired get hands on training
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Martin Antony, who is 18 years old, cleans the table, while Avinash is busy in table setting and Kishore welcomes customers at Copper Chimney, Taramani.
Martin’s mother and mentor Mary instructs Sukumar, “Place knife to the right of the plate and fork to the left.”
These adults with intellectual impairment (a slower rate of development in the ability to communicate, interact, study and work) are at on-job training at Copper Chimney for about four months.
While eight boys work at the restaurant’s Taramani branch, eight more at Cathedral Road branch and two at Winners Bakery, Alwarpet.
“I stay at Keelkattalai and I don’t know to cross the road. So, my mom comes with me and also stays here. I clean the table and also serve customers,” said Martin. His mom Mary said, “I work here as a mentor to guide these eight children who work at this branch.
Here staff speak either English or Hindi and these kids cannot understand the language and I help them and also instruct them to do work.”
“These kids are very punctual.
They come even an hour earlier. We train them daily on table setting, serving water to customers and on cleaning the table.
They were very slow earlier but now they are bit fast and can do work without any guidance.”There are two shifts and per day they earn `100. Of the 18 trainers, two are already placed.
The Spastics Society of Tamilnadu started Able@WOW (World of Work), a community-based vocational training programme last year August with an aim to train students with intellectual impairment and mild cerebral palsy for employability skills.
L.V. Jayashree, director, SPASTN said, “We want kids with intellectual impairment to work in an open employment.
We train them at the centre for a month depending on their cognitive and motor skills. And then they are given on-job training at hotels. It’s not a smooth journey and kids are quite naughty.”
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