How many of us have ever been served by an employee using a wheelchair at a bank?
Has an autistic worker ever served us our coffee?
Have we met an employee with Down syndrome at a supermarket?
In Greece, around 10% of the population is disabled people — roughly 1 million individuals.
Eurostat shows that disabled people face the widest employment gap in the EU (24 percentage points).
In Greece, this gap is even larger: 28.5 percentage points.
Only 1 in 4 disabled people are considered economically active — about half the European average.
We also have the second-highest employment gap between men and women (18.8 percentage points) and, overall, some of the lowest employment rates in the European Union.
Inadequate accessibility in workplaces, limited employment opportunities, stereotypes and prejudices, poorly implemented hiring plans and public policies, unequal access to education and training, lack of support services, and the fear of losing disability benefits are just some of the reasons why many disabled people remain excluded from work.
Through our program “Institutions Are Not the Solution | A program for the empowerment and visibility of people living in institutions in Greece, and for the promotion of deinstitutionalization”, we offer five young people living at the Rehabilitation Centre for Disabled Children at Voula, Athens, introductory Career Counselling sessions, aiming to empower them and support their future inclusion in the labour market.
In this effort, we are not alone; we are delighted to collaborate with Career Sign, a Non-Profit Civil Company that serves as a hub for career counselling for socially vulnerable groups, supporting disabled people and socially disadvantaged communities to claim the place they deserve.
🌈 Because life outside an institution should not be a privilege — but a right.
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