Innovation

The idea of the innovation here is not focused on the nature of the products, but on the act of humanity that is creating a future with options for people with hearing disabilities. They have the chance to support their own lives financially instead of becoming a burden to their families.

Inspiration

Ratnawati, the founder, used to have a regular professional job in a company. One day, she became seriously ill and was bedridden for about two months. She was unable to work. In her helpless state, she had a new-found awareness of what disabled people go through. They, too, might be in a similar helpless state all their lives, with no chance to support themselves. The illness changed her heart. When she recovered, she knew she wanted to help the disabled.

Ratnawati's personal hobby was making handcrafts. She began Precious One Foundation and trained the hearing impaired in the art of making handcrafts to be produced and sold commercially for financial gain. Ratnawati now works in this effort full-time, having left her professional job to dedicate herself to helping others.

Overall impact

Besides providing people with hearing disabilities a brighter future, the Foundation's help enabled them to increase their feelings of self-worth and gain confidence as their efforts help them achieve financial independence.

Business benefit

Business profits have increased as the hearing disabled have gained trust and loyal customers through the quality of the products they've made. Last year's profit increased around 10 percent compared to the previous year's profit.

Social and environmental benefit

Precious One Foundation has created a new hope for many parents with hearing disabled children. Many of them had sacrificed to put their disabled children in special schools where they could learn some skills. Some of them even graduated from special college programs with very good results. However, they still found it hard to get jobs in the business world where even non-disabled people face difficult competition for employment.

Many parents with hearing disabled children are concerned that their children will not be able to support themselves even if they graduate from special programs. Not many people or companies are willing to give the hearing disabled a chance.

The chances for people with disabilities to obtain jobs diminish due to several factors:

• Their physical limitations make it harder for them to compete with non-disabled people.
• A common perception is that even if the hearing disabled graduate, their special schools are not considered to be on the same level as ordinary schools.
• Employers doubt their capabilities.
• Many job locations have no supports for the disabled, i.e. no wheel-chair access, etc.
• Internal issues from the people with disabilities themselves prove to be barriers to obtaining jobs. They often felt no self-confidence. Other negative thoughts such as self-pity, low self-esteem feed the fear that prevents them from gainingany kind of job opportunities in ordinary business places.

In addition to giving employment to these special people, Precious One Foundation in cooperation with several other parties, involves the disabled in a program called, "A Hope and An Opportunity." In this program, teams will assess people with disabilities and discuss with them directly of what type of job that they would be able to handle. They help with job recruitment processes which consist of the following steps: Direct interviews with the disabled candidate, selection process, conducting motivational training, candidate placement on the job along with three months performance monitoring of the candidate at the workplace.

Precious One Foundation tries to encourage the disabled to feel useful and become productive contributors by holding jobs that could financially support their families.

Interview

Ratnawati Sutedjo, Foundation Founder & Business Owner