There is a woman in Dorset who took her redundancy money and used it to create positive roles for people with learning difficulties.
Instead of paying off her mortgage or saving it for her retirement, this woman, Jill Symes, bought a cafe (so an investment of sorts but still a risk in this economic down turn) and now employs these adults, so as to give them the ability to learn social and life skills.
Ms Symes used to teach at a local college for young people with learning difficulties so knew first hand the positive effect of having a job that enables them to mix in society and learn more.
The cafe is called Poundbury's Cafe which is located on The Green.
There are signs out for customers asking them for patience - something we all seem to lack nowadays.
According to a newspaper columnist who has written about this cafe, she saw one of the young female staff members the next day whilst out shopping, and this girl and her friend were buying themselves some handbags, with their own money for which they earnt for their work in the cafe.
Ms Symes (and her daughter Kelly) are providing a positive experience for everyone here - the staff, their families, the customers, and the rest of society who will read about this.
I wondered what role J could have, when old enough, to work in a cafe environment.
Serving the drinks would be a problem as he would be helping himself to the cola all day long.
Serving food which smells (pretty much all food then!) would make him gag, unless it was chips and then he'd be eating them.
He would be good at filling up the dishwasher though, and emptying it.
A little bit of direction and a lot of repetitivness and he'd love it.
Well done to Ms Symes and thank you for bringing our special young adults into the fore and proving that they should never be written off or forgotten about.
