Work with equal opportunities. Tecnia, San José , Costa Rica, v. 6, n°18, Sep-Dec 2005.

 

There are more shadows than light in the issue of the access to work for people with disabilities. The expectations created by Law 7600 ten years ago do not coincide with today's reality. There is still much to be done in order to end discrimination and exclusion for this population in Costa Rican working environment.

However, there are some beams of hope that confirm the beginning in Costa Rica of a process of vindication of the working status of people with disabilities and a big shift in the bureaucratic system towards the recognition of their abilities and their individual and collective rights.

The new actions are mainly directed towards the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms of people with disabilities, by ensuring proper access to public and private services and satisfying their basic needs and guaranteeing equal treatment in the service.

Governmental institutions (central, autonomous and municipal) and private enterprises will have to rethink the approach of their employment policies and appreciate people with disabilities as an economic development generating group: producer, consumer and tax-payer. That is, understanding that promoting this group's labour insertion is not an expense, from the perspective of an "aid"; it is rather a sector that contributes to the country's social and productive development.

According to INA's foundation act, created in 1965, it offers training for work opportunities for people with disabilities. The institution has gone through the paradigms of conceptualisations and circumstantial attention of each historic moment in the last forty years. In this sense, the institutional approach can be separated from the training of people with disabilities, taking the passing of Law 7600 and its Regulation as a reference.

This Magazine presents a number of articles and reports on the subject of training and employment of people with disabilities in Costa Rica.

Contents

INA's vision and mission

From the Direction
Special report: Employment and disability

Cover
Work with equal opportunities

Article
- Disability in figures
- Law 7600: Impact on the Costa Rican labour scenario
- Labour insertion modalities
- Successful employability experiences
- Entrepreneurial sector says YES to the labour insertion of people with disabilities
- Protagonists in the labour insertion of people with disabilities
- INA provides training for the labour world
- Incentives for those who employ people with disabilities
- Social responsibility: In favour of collective well-being

Supplement
Recommendations to interact with people with disabilities

Tecnia Magazinea v. 6, n°18, 2005

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