[On the spot, I am thinking]

Original title: If the branches are broken, only efforts can be made to grow in spring

Tang Shu

Some time ago, when I went to Guangxi to interview the life and work of the disabled group, I couldn't help thinking of a literary anecdote: Yu Hua once said that he, together with Mo Yan and Liu Zhenyun, carried Shi Tiesheng onto the train, took him to play football and made him a goalkeeper. They regard Shi Tiesheng as an ordinary person rather than a person in a wheelchair, and take him to see the larger world. How valuable this mentality and spirit is.

Usually, I seldom contact the disabled, and I don't know how to talk, what tone to use, and whether I will hurt their self-esteem in a moment... Before the interview, I felt uneasy for a long time. But facts have proved that to treat them with ordinary mind is the greatest respect for them.

In the interview, whether it's live delivery of goods in the snail powder workshop, express customer service in the workplace, or making handicrafts in the cultural and creative base, processing and production in the industrial park... My deepest feeling is that when they put into work, you will naturally ignore their physical disability, and they seem to have forgotten this. Facts have proved that they can do as well as healthy people, or even better in some areas.

From this, I realized the core of helping the disabled in employment: what they need is not special care and sympathy, but equal participation in various activities without being looked upon by people, and living the same social life as other people.

Over the years, the work of assisting the disabled in employment has gradually made gratifying achievements, and the situation has changed bit by bit - The Three Year Action Plan for Promoting the Employment of Disabled Persons (2022-2024), the 14th Five Year Plan for the Security and Development of Disabled Persons and other documents proposed to "promote the formation of a good social environment for understanding, caring and supporting the employment and entrepreneurship of disabled persons" "Promote employment and entrepreneurship of the disabled through multiple channels, and expand employment channels for the disabled, especially the blind, in the fields of culture, art, mental health and Internet services". At the same time, silent restaurants are blooming everywhere, silent riders are shuttling around the streets, and caring workshops are set up for people... More and more enterprises and social forces are providing jobs for the disabled and creating an employment environment.

A gratifying new phenomenon is that with the help of digital technology and the Internet economy, various new forms of employment have broken the traditional employment model and limitations, providing more options and possibilities for the disabled to pursue their dreams and realize their self-worth. According to the data of an audiobook platform, the platform has more than 8000 disabled anchors, with the largest number of albums playing more than 800 million people and the highest annual income of nearly one million yuan; Not long ago, the first barrier free space for regular disabled recruitment was launched in Shanghai, and the "cloud interview" service platform provides barrier free online interviews

There is still a long way to go from barrier free employment to truly barrier free employment. Only by making the environment barrier free can we achieve barrier free employment. On September 1 last year, the Law on Accessible Environment Construction was implemented, providing a solid legal guarantee for the disabled to participate in and integrate into social life equally, fully and conveniently. It should not be ignored that there are still a smaller number of disabled groups in the forgotten corner. For example, there are 12 million mentally handicapped people in China, whose employment rate is less than 5%, far lower than the employment rate of other disabled groups. How to make disability employment more effective? How to make the policy warm to cover more disabled people? These need to be explored in practice.

Employment is not only a bridge for the disabled to integrate into the society, but also a torch to illuminate their life. Deng Fengzhu, who founded the Guilin Stone Painting Assisted Employment Agency for the Disabled, told me that through skills training, many disabled students found self-confidence, and some people bought their first mobile phones with the money they earned. She will never forget how pure and bright the smiles on her students' faces were when they were praised.

The body may be incomplete, but the love of life will not. When Shi Tiesheng recalled the past, he wrote: "I am the worst but the happiest goalkeeper." Friends pushed, carried and carried him to many places. He also wheeled his wheelchair through the winter of melting snow, through the mud road, through the eaves of dripping water, through the normal eyes on the way to visit his loved ones.

Shi Tiesheng, who loves life, wrote: "If the branches are broken, only efforts can be made to grow in spring." We are also people who "lift wheelchairs" to help the disabled obtain employment, integrate into society and grow upward.