After various failed attempts at finding employment for his son with Down Syndrome, Ong Chin Wah, along with four other caregivers of youths with intellectual disability (PIDs) decided to take matters into their own hands. In 2011, they started a cooperative ‘Employment for Persons with Intellectual Disability (E4PID)’, with its flagship initiative, ‘Mushroom Buddies’, a social project operated largely by people with intellectual disabilities.
The urban farm started with help from a waste management company that offered to sponsor containers retrofitted to grow mushrooms, using the space leased from the Singapore government at a highly subsidised rate. As at June 2023, the farm employed seven PIDs and produced 5-12 kg of mushroom every day that were sold to local restaurants, walk-in customers and at farmers’ markets.
Mushroom Buddies gave the member caregivers more control over the work environment and the terms of employment, which helped create a model for sustainable, gainful employment for their special needs youth and the opportunity to support more intellectually disabled youth from the community. The founders are acutely aware of the constraints and capabilities their employees have, and recognised that the work needs to be structured and repetitive.
‘Mushroom Buddies’ was the first successful project by E4PID and while the initial progress is encouraging, for it to sustain and flourish, Ong needs to scale it and find more venture ideas, volunteers, and funds.
This case can be used for graduate, post-graduate, and executive classes. Discussion of this case allows students to analyse the issues employees with intellectual disabilities encounter in the workplace. Students will understand the concepts of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem, the challenges faced by social entrepreneurs, scaling up, employing the disabled, sustainability, and volunteer management for a small-scale social enterprise.
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