“Smart Hands” a project educating blind and visually impaired people to create and manufacture products on the market

The initial phase of the “Smart Hands” project started in May 2005. Its idea is to promote visually impaired people manual labor, meaning, the production of different products for the market through individual manual labor. We are thus expecting to free blind and visually impaired people from the embedded notion of the necessity of social welfare and therefore help visually impaired people become self sufficient and independent through their developed motor and kinesthetic capabilities as well as increase their self respect and a sense of self worth. Furthermore, the association would like to provide a small, but hopefully significant contribution in order to preserve Croatian traditional manufacture and affect the promotion of manufacture with the production of autochthonous souvenirs improving thus the overall tourist offer.
In order to deliver the above mentioned we would educate visually impaired people to manufacture traditional products (lace, textile and similar) as well as arrange the sale of the said products through different distributors and thus extend the sale to a large market. The educators will be recognized in their trade specializing in the manufacture of authentic products. The project will be carried out within the “Homer” association working areas and partly in the homes of blind and visually impaired people if the production phase allows the manufacturing to be refined at home. Other than promoting and selling the manufactured products through various distributors, the products will also be offered on Homer’s web site (www.homer.hr) and once the variety of products becomes substantial an on-line purchase option will be made available.  

Long-term goal: A full social integration and independence from social welfare, especially with blind and visually impaired people above the age of 40 whose job market is fairly limited. Continuous psychophysical rehabilitation, considering that it would also pay off economically, for people whose visual impairment exceeds 60%. Promoting manual labor since a larger number of highly educated visually impaired people have difficulty finding jobs on the market in their field of study even after 15 years.  

Short-term goal: Continuous development of blind and visually impaired people’s motor and kinesthetic skills, increasing thus their self respect and self worth by earning for their living. Production of the first series of products to be offered on the market.

Projected activities for the year 2005/2006 are:

• educating blind and visually impaired people to manufacture  autochthonous traditional products,
• organizing the production in the association’s work areas and in the homes of blind and visually impaired people,
• finding partners in order to promote and distribute products,
• product quality control and evaluation of the visually impaired individual’s rehabilitation level.

 

The project will be carried out within the “Homer” association working areas and partly in the homes of blind and visually impaired people if the production phase allows the manufacturing to be refined at home. Professionals involved in the project are: the project manager, renowned trade manufacturers, educators, consultant – supervisor and outside expert associates. The project is envisioned to include blind and visually impaired people for the production throughout Croatia.   

Expected results:

Upon completion of the project, we expect all participants to be capable of envisioning the product as well as recognizing the materials needed for the production of a particular product. Furthermore, after the initial supervision of the trade manufacturer, we expect participants to be able to use the necessary tools and slowly independently manufacture the first series of products for promotional purposes. Finally, we expect the manufacturer-educator to act as mentor in order to ensure the quality of production while we believe that the participants (manufacturers) will be able to improve their skills and individually manufacture products to their final production phases.