CEDEM organized the final conference within the project “Training and employment to social inclusion”

Podgorica, PR press service – Within the project Training and employment to social inclusion, six people with disabilities (PWD) are employed for a period of six months, and employers’ awareness of employment benefits of this population through the subsidy program needs to be increased.

This was announced at the presentation of the results of the project “Training and Employment to Social Inclusion”, implemented by the Center for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM) in cooperation with the Media Institute of Montenegro and the Center for Foreign Languages ​​and Translation Double L, supported by the Employment Bureau Montenegro (ZZZCG).

Director of CEDEM, Milena Besic, said that the goal of the project was to contribute to social inclusion, greater employability and increase the competitiveness of PWD in the labor market, as well as raising awareness of the general public with an emphasis on employers on the benefits of PWD employment.

“The expected results of this project, which we fulfilled during the year, were to provide professional training for ten PWDs, through two educational modules. The goal is also their preparation for later work engagement in CEDEM, the Media Institute and Double L “, said Bešić in the PR Center.

She explained that the training was conducted during six months, during which six PWDs were professionally engaged as business secretaries, assistant site administrators, legal assistants, administrative clerks and foreign language teaching assistants.

“During the project, we had the opportunity to cooperate with the media, within the activities regularly conducted by CEDEM, Double L and the Media Institute, which increased the level of knowledge in business communication of PWDs who were engaged,” said Besic.

According to her, the training and development of PWDs was achieved through two educational modules.

“Within the first module, ten PWDs from the records of the ZZZCG Bureau underwent the first training related to computer work and gained practical knowledge on how to use a computer, the Internet and basic programs such as Word, Power Point and Excel,” said Besic. .

According to her, the participants in the project also learned about the role of the civil sector in the development of society and strengthening respect for human rights, with an emphasis on the rights of PWDs.

“On the second and third day, within this training, they learned the principles of project writing, all in order to understand the functioning of the organizations in which they worked, as well as possible assistance to employees who coordinate these projects,” said Besic.

The second educational module, as she pointed out, was the training in English, which was conducted in Double L.

“All PWDs that were engaged in the project successfully passed this training, within which they raised the existing level of knowledge by one degree, for which they received certificates,” said Besic.

“They have shown exceptional results, which we consider a great success and a recommendation for later employers to send a message within all future programs that will be available to use the opportunity to hire PWDs,” said Besic.

The coordinator of the project in CEDEM and one of the authors of the study “The position of PWDs and their protection against discrimination in Montenegro”, which is the result of the project, Ognjen Markovic, said that the analysis was divided into several parts in order to, as he explained, to answer the question of how to treat the rights of PWDs in Montenegro.

He pointed out that the publication represents a brief analysis of the normative framework with a focus on the most important international conventions and strategies ratified by Montenegro in the field of protection of the rights of PWDs. respect for the rights of PWDs, as well as the European PWD Strategy for 2010/2020.

“One of the great challenges that PWDs face is determining the percentage of disability and assessing the remaining working capacity. Properly expressed percentage of disability, in addition to the categorization, is very important due to the amount of subsidies for employers, in accordance with the Law on Employment and Professional Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities, which shows the key findings of our analysis, “said Markovic.

On the other hand, as he pointed out, in Montenegro there is still no official database on the total number of persons with disabilities and the total number of employed or unemployed PWDs, as well as the qualifications and skills that these persons possess.

“Most of them are employed in organizations that deal with the protection of PWDs, while other employers decide to pay the prescribed amounts to the Fund for Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of PWDs, rather than to employ those persons,” said Markovic.

He assessed that it is necessary to continue working on increasing the awareness of employers about the benefits of employing PWDs, through the program of subsidies, which employers, as he stated, use more and more every year.

“When we talk about monitoring the declining trends of discrimination against PWDs, we should take into account that the level of discrimination, according to our research, has increased towards other vulnerable groups,” said Markovic.

On the other hand, he added, the results of the survey on discrimination conducted by CEDEM in March last year, which, as he reminded, shows that 85.3 percent of Montenegrin citizens support the actions of the state aimed at combating direct and indirect discrimination against PWDs.

“There are still serious shortcomings when it comes to the realization and protection of the human rights of PWDs, although some progress has been made and stated in the relevant reports,” said Markovic.

The participant of the project, Vanja Pejanović, who was employed at CEDEM for six months, said that her work in that organization was a useful experience.

“Training for computer programs was very useful to me, in which I was not engaged before. As far as English language training is concerned, it is a very useful experience “, stated Pejanović.