COPI VIVA: Students fight for inclusion
Basic information
Project Title
Full project title
Category
Project Description
COPI VIVA was born as a unique online copyshop. Planned, brought to life, and managed by people with disabilities and high support needs, COPI VIVA has sustainability and fight for inclusion and visibility of functional diversity as its cornerstones. The rehabilitation of a physical store for collection and public attention means implementing our objectives and ideas aesthetically and functionally to offer a beautiful, functional, and adapted space both to our potential clients and coworkers.
Geographical Scope
Project Region
Urban or rural issues
Physical or other transformations
EU Programme or fund
Which funds
Description of the project
Summary
FEYCSA is a Special Employment Centre run by four non-profit associations which share one objective: improving the quality of life of persons with disabilities and a whole system of values and ethical code of how to act in the field of the socio-occupational integration of the group of persons with disabilities.To this end, they consider training as one of the most valuable tools for achieving integration and improving the employability of all persons with disabilities.
Its training work guides it to the professional areas of the business lines that it develops as a special employment center: Laborviva, Docuviva, and Ecoviva. For this purpose, it is approved by the SEF (Regional Labor Administration) in several professional certificates. It participates primarily in programs aimed to train persons with disabilities, preferably unemployed, with work skills to enter the labour market.
Within the framework of Feycsa's courses, the intra-entrepreneurship for people with functional diversity was discussed. Two of the students were convinced that if they were helped, they would be able to set up an online copying service: they would only need an adapted facility and a photocopier/scanner to offer a small part of the on-site service. With the support of the technicians of Feycsa, these two severely disabled people developed their idea.
A small facility was located, very close to the university community in the city of Murcia (Campus of La Merced) an old stationery shop closed by its owner.On the other hand, using all the machinery and infrastructure dedicated to printing that Feycsa uses in its Docu Viva service, they could offer an online printing and copying service through a platform created for it to the student's Campus.
With these basics, in Sept. 2019 the COPI VIVA website was designed, the premises adapted and renewed, and the plan and business development with its first promoters Desi (Asperger disability) and David (Intellectual disability) was launched.
Key objectives for sustainability
Through the COPI VIVA initiative, students are offered the possibility to print at the least possible cost and with the most excellent guarantee of sustainability due to copying and binding FEYCSA services only uses paper with environmental certification and the recycling of all ink cartridges.
The students enjoy the chance of collaborating with SDG 4,8,10,11,12 and 13, in a simple way. Besides, with service close to their university and education ecosystem: their online orders and the support they gave to the project in its beginnings through social media contributed to the rapid expansion and opening of several COPI VIVA SOLIDARITY COLLECTION POINTS.
In addition, there is the opportunity for the whole society to collaborate by opening COPI VIVA SOLIDARITY COLLECTION POINTS spread by Universities, Municipalities, Libraries... So that the copies are ordered online or in the store. Still, they can be collected in collaborating points, reducing the cost and environmental impact of unnecessary travel while giving high visibility to social inclusion.
Key objectives for aesthetics and quality
The opening of COPI VIVA STORE involved adapting the facilities and the facade of the old stationery to the aesthetics of the area (old town of the city of Murcia) and adapting the interior of the premises to the needs of the new reprography.
The renovation and adaptation of the space done at the store allow the proper performance at their jobs for the people with functional diversity working there. Furthermore, it also offers a showroom space for all products designed by people with disabilities from Feycsa, which are specially created for the COPI VIVA brand, produced at Feycsa.
This showroom format and the impact of the COPI VIVA concept in the area have attracted local artists and brands who want to collaborate with the project by showcasing their artwork in the shop and designing unique material to be printed COPI VIVA brand.
Key objectives for inclusion
Our final goal with this project was to create jobs for people with functional diversity and high support needs by creating an inclusive space allowing them to learn how to deal with the public both face-to-face, online, and by phone. COPI VIVA disabled employees with social skills problems (Autism and Asperger syndrome) train their social and coping abilities while offering meaningful service to their working community.
COPI VIVA agreed with Plena Inclusión (Association representing intellectual disability families in Spain) to sell books IN EASY READ FORMAT in PDF print so that people with intellectual disabilities can access culture and literature through an affordable format adapted to their needs.
At the beginning of the project, one of our main aims was to produce and sell stationery product lines designed by people with disabilities and by local artists who stand in solidarity with the brand. The aim is to create an ecosystem of art and social inclusion support. The values we transmit with the stationery are overcoming fears and obstacles, resilience, the fight against adversity... You can review the artists and brands collaborating with COPI VIVA at the following link: https://www.latiendalaborviva.com/
Results in relation to category
At the time of project completion marked by the evaluation and measurement of business plan results, one year and three months after the store's opening, COPI VIVA was an online and physical store that stably employs until today. 3 people with disabilities (Asperger syndrome, severe cerebral palsy, and physical disability with cognitive impairment by age) manage the physical store and the online store. Even they manage a website blog where they give advice and interact with university students, demonstrating that the SUM OF CAPABILITIES turns the impossible into reality.
The opening of the COPI VIVA physical store and the development of the online store business aroused media attention. The online web was a finalist for the best web awards in our area: https://www.copiviva.com/blog/
From our business, the needs of our staff have always been taken into account. Adaptations have been made to changes such as the Coronavirus, developing a Specific Biological Risk Assessment document for Coronavirus Exposure. The main objective of all these measures taken is to follow their work efficiently.
How Citizens benefit
The project directly involves people with disabilities, a vulnerable sector whose work should be valued and recognized as the rest. In addition, anyone who is a customer of this business benefits from this project. Mainly young people and others who often use copy shops find a great advantage when it comes to printing online. It makes an innovative job adapted to changes in society.
Physical or other transformations
Innovative character
The people with functional diversity who initiated the idea of COPI VIVA have been supported in the whole learning process which entails the ideation and implementation of the project: Desi and David have been involved in all the steps of the project, from the initial idea, search for opportunity and business development, to the design of the website and the completion of the bureaucratic procedures to open the physical store.
They have also been the promoters of ideas that have been included in the initial project during its development: the adaptation of books published in an easy-to-read format to the PDF format, the participation of the local community of artists in the project, the development of solidarity collection points and the dissemination of all the activity in RRSS, the design of unique material for the stationery store…
On the other hand, we highlight the innovative point of involving the University Campus students community in the start-up and promotion business plan launching. Since this group has helped the visibility and dissemination of the project, creating a very high initial demand that allowed COPI VIVA to open various collection points for reprographic material quickly, thus multiplying the impact of the project and the visibility of the collective.
Learning transferred to other parties
Inclusive work consists of the necessary and personalized services and actions so that the person with disabilities or difficulties can access, maintain and promote themselves in a company within the labour market, with the support of professionals and other supportive measures.
The work of collectives and associations such as ours are making visible an increasingly evident reality. Our society is willing to pay more for products and/or services that actively defend and support the values that this society upholds. That is why today, more than ever, principles, such as proximity consumption, ecology, or health, take precedence over price in many cases.
It is a small project but very scalable and transferable to any other special employment center/association supporting people with functional diversity working employability and entrepreneurship. The interaction and support of student communities around higher education institutions or universities offer a business opportunity and the promotion of social and employment inclusion of persons with disabilities.
In order to disseminate the impact and transfer potential of this practice, FEYCSA has been thoroughly publishing about the project on their website, the local and regional media, and their blog, as well as sharing it in its network of partners and enterprises.
