Project Ideas
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Invite disabled speakers to a club meeting or a disabled person to a Task Force for Jobs for Disabled Persons committee meeting to become aware of the needs and barriers to employment.
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Introduce the service opportunity early in the Rotary year by devoting one of your club’s weekly programs to the topic Creating Jobs for the World’s Disabled (See Fact Sheet in PDF Format.
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Create a partnership with a local vocational rehabilitation organization for example Goodwill Industry to identify sectors in your local economy where job opportunities exist or can be created for persons with disabilities, and jointly design efforts to promote that partnership.
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Become informed about how country, state and local government employment centers operate in your area - examine how to leverage or complement their resources to benefit persons with disabilities.
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Undertake a project to train persons with disabilities for job interviews and to assist them in finding meaningful employment.
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Sponsor a career day for persons with disabilities.
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Sponsor a person with disabilities to participate as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar or Group Study Exchange team member.
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Invite and school administrators, gather data on job possibilities and facilitate job interviews for attendees.
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Link your Rotary club and a club overseas to create employment opportunities and job-readiness training programs for persons with disabilities, and leverage Rotary Foundation grants to fund them.
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Invite a legal expert to address your Rotary club on employment laws and the rights of persons with disabilities.
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Initiate, expand or strengthen programs that provide medical equipment for persons with disabilities, or programs of detection, prevention, and treatment of disabilities.
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Finance surgery or other necessary medical procedures to help persons with disabilities that are lacking the finances to do this him/herself.
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Donate medical equipment (wheel chairs, eyeglasses, hearing aids, crutches, prosthetic limbs, etc.) to help the persons with disabilities in less-developed countries.
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Sponsor a Career Camp for Developmentally Disabled Students. Work with your local schools and Vocational Rehabilitation Bureaus to fund a 4 to 6 week Career Camp. Offer the students free to area businesses to do work in food service, auto mechanics, landscaping, janitorial and other maintenance jobs 5 days a week about 5 hours a day (with a lunch in the middle). Rotary clubs need to fund camp councilors to work with the students.
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Collect wheelchairs, walkers and canes for developing countries. Set up collection sites around the community for people to drop off wheelchairs, walkers and canes for recycling to developing countries. an estimated 18 million people worldwide need wheelchairs according to the World Health Organization. Partner with a Rotary Club in that country to distribute the equipment.
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Partner with another club in a developing country to give artificial limbs to mine victims. The "Prosthesis Foundation of Thailand", for example, makes artificial limbs from discarded aluminum cans and plastic bottles for only $25. The problem is most amputees earn about 5 cents a day. This would be a great WCS project with a club in Thailand and be eligible for a Rotary Foundation Matching Grant.