Focus on 123Dys
Workshops to open doors into professional life for dyspraxic youths.
Laurent Desboudard, General Manager of ibis Lyons Part-Dieu.
123Dys is an association set up to support and accompany dyspraxic people and help them achieve an autonomous and fulfilling life.
Dyspraxia is a condition that impairs a person’s ability to execute particular movements automatically but does not result in total paralysis of the muscles involved in the movement.
Conspicuously clumsy gross and fine motor skills, poor organisational skills, inadequate coordination in everyday tasks, sensory disorders and trouble concentrating are only a few of the most common symptoms.
The Accor Foundation is supporting the 123Dys association to provide dyspraxic people with access to training and a professional life.
5 association’s volunteers are taught to organize computer training courses for the target group. The goal is to help dyspraxic teenagers and young adults to sharpen their memories and organisational skills and thereby boost their chances of findings jobs and blending into society.
The Accor Foundation’s support is making it possible for four pro-bono workers to work with four dyspraxic youths, teaching them to plan tasks, organise the space around them, cope with their attention deficit, and sharpen their memories. These four youths are in secondary school and need specific support to study and make their way into working lives.
As of the end of the programme undertaken in 2010, significant progress had been made in the management of the 4 young people’s disabilities. Furthermore, all of them had progressed in their path to professional integration.
- The first, a 21-year-old female, found a job in the medical sector;
- The second, a 20-year-old female, is training to be a secretary in a “Mission Rurale Familiale”;
- The third, a 19-year-old male, obtained his vocational diploma in sales. He is going to train in a banking agency;
- The fourth, a 17-year-old female, is following a BEPASAP training programme (household assistance for elderly people).
The Accor Foundation then decided to pursue its partnership; the association is broadening the programme to accompany 15 dyspraxic youth in 2011-2012. A new approach has been developed for the continuation of this programme: neuropsychology (study of the relationship between brain function and human behaviour). These neuropsychological assessments will determine whether, over the long term, the training undertaken with the software improves cognitive functions that impact everyday life, academic performance and professional integration and inclusion capacities.
