Community and Social Services Minister Madeleine Meilleur visited Ottawa’s ComputerWise on April 24 to officially open their new and expanded facility.
Here’s the full text of Minister Madeleine Meilleur’s speech.
ComputerWise is a program of Ottawa Foyers Partage, a non-profit organization that supports people with disabilities. For more than 20 years, ComputerWise has been helping people with disabilities acquire computer and office skills. Depending on the disability, participants in the program use a variety of adaptive devices to access computers. These devices include mini-keyboards, expanded keyboards, headpointers and foot-switches.
ComputerWise is now located at 44 Eccles Street. The new, accessible workspace means more people with disabilities can participate and learn marketable skills. For example, there are twice as many workstations. A receptionist desk and a training area for assessing new clients have been added. There is also a larger work space for graphic, data entry and bookkeeping responsibilities.
“Through the simple aid of technology, this program is giving people a way to learn skills in a setting that is uniquely suited to their abilities,” said Minister Meilleur. “We know that people with disabilities are an under-used pool of talent for our workforce. We need to show people that it’s a talent pool they can’t overlook — especially with the retirement of so many baby boomers just around the corner.”
ComputerWise provides businesses with a range of services, including:
- print services (i.e. business cards, flyers, posters, labels, newsletters)
- document creation and assembly
- shredding
- multi-media presentations
- letter merges
- scanning.
For more information about Ottawa Foyers Partage, visit www.cwise.org.
Learn more
According to the 2001 Statistics Canada Participation and Activity Limitation Survey (PALS):
- 90% of persons with disabilities did as well or better at their jobs than non-disabled co-workers
- 86% rated average or better in attendance
- staff retention was 72% higher among persons with disabilities
Why not include people with disabilities in your work force? Find out what you can do to recruit, hire, retain and accommodate employees with disabilities.