Maja Malić, Advisor to the Croatian Employers’ Association, Association of Food Industry and Agriculture. Sustainable Development and Socially Responsible Business wrote the following post on LinkedIn on November 27, 2024:
› Would you hire a person with autism in your company? Do you know the job opportunities and qualities of people with autism?
› What does your company do regarding the integration of foreign workers? Are there internal training and processes that foreign workers go through before or during employment?
› Does your company violate children’s rights and do you know how your business affects children’s rights?
We discussed the answers to these and other questions today at the mini-conference “S” in ESG – Inclusive Labor Market and Children’s Rights”, which we organized in cooperation with the Association for Lifelong Education STRUKA.
Mr. Željko Habek, President of the STRUKA Association, introduced the Association and the Green ASC VET project, whose main goal is to promote inclusive employment of people on the autism spectrum through various professional workshops and programs for people on the autism spectrum as well as teachers who work with people on the autism spectrum.
We heard Prof. Dr. Jasmina Stošić from the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation, University of Zagreb, who gave us a lecture on autism, behavior of people with autism, and support in employment and maintaining employment for people on the autism spectrum.
Dr. Leila Mekacher, Director of Innoversa Factory, presented an example from practice on immersive technologies as an opportunity for inclusion.
An inspiring lecture was given by Ms. Snježana Čop, who is herself the mother of a young man with autism and an entrepreneur who shared her own experience of her son who turned his qualities, which others see as difficulties, into a successful family business “Petrova tsetenina”.
Through a video address, we also heard a Danish example of employing people on the autism spectrum from Kristina Ochmirova from the LudusXR ASD Initiative.
As the conference focused on the “S” ESG, we also had two presentations on the integration of foreign workers and the role of the majority society in the entire process, as well as practical examples given by Filip Gospodnetić, Director of Datafit, and Ivana Đuroković, Director of Putujmo.
The last part of the program was dedicated to the rights and mental health of children and the connection between business and children’s rights, which were given by colleagues from our long-time partner UNICEF – Lidija Gamulin, Martina Prokl and Ivana Ćosić.
With this conference, we opened up serious and important, perhaps neglected, topics that we will try to discuss more, more often and louder.
