It is has been part of not only my research, but also my young experience so far that the focus out there is to help people just to get a job. Even though having a job is not necessarily a negative experience since you can learn important skills from it, it is very important to help people with disabilities in learning and using the skills necessary to have a great life.
I say this because talking from my experience, I have struggled in jobs and I was not able to develop real skills to accomplish my definite purpose until recently. For a time, I received services from my local vocational rehabilitation agency and I thought that perhaps they were going to help me guide me to a career. Instead, they just focus on finding me any job and they didn’t really help me at all. I got my first job only a few years ago in retail customer service. Back then I had only dreams of becoming rich, but since I have never worked before or even owned a business, I saw it as the first step towards getting into the real world. From there, I went to work in different jobs and different industries like hospitality, higher education, financial services and health insurance.
Even though I disliked those jobs and dealing with my disability it was not easy to communicate effectively and efficiently with people, I gained experience and skills that lead me to accomplish bigger goals in life. For example, after being in hospitality job pushed me to go back to school and complete my degree. Most important, I was able to learn to become more of a people person, being able to learn the following skills: customer service, retail sales, improve communication, billing, balancing, multitasking , telephone skills, fundraising etc. Those jobs early lead me to really begin to start making contributions in the community by volunteering for an autism organization in 2014 and till this day being part of the board of directors as the adult representing the Autistic population in the organization.
My focus here is that it is important to help our people with disabilities, especially adults, to learn the skills and experiences necessary to create value in the world, not just get a job. Right now, I am working in building my streams of income to become financially free within a few years. My focus is not just to learn the skills, but, to really use them to bring significant value in making a difference in people’s lives all over the World. Each person with a disability has something significant to share with the World and it is our job to give them the chance to unleash their true potential.
Tony Hernandez Pumarejo
7/17/17