Fundacja na Rzecz Osob Niepelnosprawnych "ARKADIA" w Toruniu

The Arkadia Foundation is a non-governmental organisation, employing over 50 people, based in Toruń, Poland. We have been operating since 1993 and we address our actions primarily to persons with intellectual disabilities. We support them in becoming self-reliant and independent at all stages of their lives. We aid the local special schools that support the intellectually disabled from birth until the end of education – we provide workshops for children on our premises, we educate parents regarding the opportunities for their children after leaving school. We advocate employment in the open labour market and possibly independent living. We run an Occupational Therapy Workshop – a method of social and vocational therapy for adult people with intellectual disabilities, where they hone their skills and competencies and prepare for employment in the open labour market. The Workshop offers activities such as carpentry, sewing, artistic activities, gardening, the participants also train their vocational skills in ordinary companies in the region. We try to make the Workshop as open as possible and use it as a tool for social inclusion of the disabled participants. We directly prepare our clients for the introduction to the open labour market and implement supported employment – a well-known and efficient method of employing the disabled in ordinary companies and institutions with the aid of a job coach. We were the first organisation in our region to apply this method, and with considerable success. We implement training housing – a form of training which is to prepare the participant for possibly independent living in the future. This is to be the first step to supported housing. We operate a day care centre for adult people with profound intellectual disability and multiple disabilities. We provide rehabilitation in the scope of their cognitive skills, simple activities of everyday life, as well as physiotherapy in order to work on both the body and the mind.