“VIA Werkstätten” – a place of employment for people with disabilities: selfdetermined and community-based
“VIA Werkstätten“ is a recognised sheltered workplace for people with disabilities and forms part of the VIA Corporate Association. Founded in 2004, “VIA Werkstätten” aims to provide qualified, individual and centrally located employment for people with disabilities. Currently, it employs 245 clients and offers support in the fields of rehabilitation, education and workforce participation. VIA Werkstätten provides opportunity to people with disabilities to be part of an active work force, to belong to, and pursue objectives as part of a group and to be active, self-determined and feel a sense of achievement. “VIA Werkstätten” follows in its product design an artistic direction and gives its clients the opportunity to develop their creativity in a creative environment.
Qualified employees with additional certificates form the clients’ support team and help to identify and further develop clients’ skills and competences. A stimulating working atmosphere with a wide range of interesting and diverse projects further adds to an atmosphere which enables the client to enjoy his or her working environment. Clients benefit from our experience in counselling, assistance and workplace provision. We believe that many creative people work and think better than one. That is why we are in close contact to the local art scene. Together we create ideas and design unique products such as elaborate one-of-a-kind products, small product series and special services – all of them marketable and competitive. Our brand “Blumenfisch” promotes our own products. “Blumenfisch” is also the name of a flower and design
shop in Berlin Prenzlauer Berg, which is renowned for its unique and quality products all over the city and beyond. Uwe Gervink, the managing director of “VIA Werkstätten” postulates - “Real inclusion can only happen, when everyone of us treats people with disabilities in an unprejudiced way, by offering support and share experiences of every-day-life. That’s why I encourage every employer and company to increasingly employ people with disabilities.” By outsourcing workplaces onto the primary labour market, VIA Werkstätten and local enterprises lead a new way in occupational rehabilitation.
In the last 20 years, the VIA Corporate Association, through its work, has been
aiming to contribute to the inclusion of people with disabilities. It didn’t accept that people with disabilities were perceived on the grounds of their disability and therefore worked towards a competence and skills based perception of people with disabilities and the contribution they can make to our society. Today, the company is still committed to social integration in the communities where people live and not on the outskirts. Current workplace locations are: Prenzlauer Berg, Weißensee, Kreuzberg and Wannsee. The company provides interesting and varied employment in wideranging fields such as: design and decoration, theatre design, metal works and carpentry, floristry, landscape design, utilities management, domestic economics, office communication, digital media, pottery, textile design, screen printing, and acting
For further information visit our website www.via-werkstaetten.de
