'Icebreakers' awards given to employers of people with disabilities
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
28.09.2017 08:30
Polish businesses, organisations, schools and sports clubs have been awarded for employing people with disabilities and activities to break down stereotypes and prejudice.
Agata Kornhauser Duda. Photo: PAP/Marcin Kmieciński
The 12th Lodołamacze (Icebreakers) awards, held under the auspices of Poland's First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda, were given out in Warsaw on Wednesday night.
Kornhauser-Duda said people with disabilities had wide-ranging educational opportunities but employment levels were low, applauding companies who hired them for “proving that disability does not hinder achievement of success in either social or professional life”.
Jan Zająć, the CEO of the Polish Organisation of Employers of People with Disabilities, said 75 percent of people with disabilities were not in the workforce.
Zając said the Lodołamacze competition “on the one hand ... shows good role models for employers but on the other, it shows employers, prospective employees and people with disabilities who are afraid of entering the job market, that you can enter the market and be an able, efficient and valuable employee”.
Among the winners was biomass boiler manufacturer MetalERG from Oława, southern Poland, which employs 150 people, almost half of whom have disabilities.
Other winners were child care centres from Rzeszów, southeastern Poland, Wrocław University of Science and Technical in southern Poland, and the Wieliczka salt mine in southern Poland.
The awards have been handed out since 2006. (vb)
Source: IAR