It is Mykal Dimond-Grey’s birthday. A morning tea shout, birthday card and a rousing version of Happy Birthday puts a beaming grin on his face.
Birthdays are always a big deal at Achievement House. Mykal Dimond-Grey, centre in red t shirt and holding card, smiles as other workers and volunteers join him for morning tea, from left (Cambridge unless stated) Terry Barnett, Jeremy Piecry, (Hmn), Michael Dodds, David Peacock (Hmn), Theresa Rippey, Leon Smith (Hmn), Jenna Tutbury, Brett Sager, Ricky Robson, Andrew Atkinson (Hmn), Courtney Duncan, Adele White-side (Hmn), Hone Paki (Hmn), Ricky Inglis, Gail Longley, Mark Tyrell-Ellis and Carl Smith. Photo: Mary Anne Gill
His work colleagues at Achievement House in Cambridge surround him as he gets the birthday card from programme supervisor Shelby McClelland.
But minutes later, it is back to the floor. This is a workplace where smoko time is just that, enough time for a drink and snack in between completing clients’ contracts.
Brett Sager of Cambridge working on a plastic project in Achievement House.
Hamilton’s Jeremy Piecry catches the bus daily to Cambridge to work at Achievement House. He’s wrapping plastic sauce bottles for distribution.
Interim manager Karen Scott is quick to say Cambridge Disability Enterprise, which owns Achievement House manufacturing plant in Wilson Street, is running a business which just happens to be a charity.
Describing its aim as “not for loss” rather than the usual “not for profit” descriptor hints at how the organisation is reshaping itself as it closes in on its 50th anniversary.
Established in 1976 as the Cambridge Disabled Sheltered Workshop – it dropped sheltered workshop in recent times as it no longer describes who they are or what they do – Scott’s role is to grow the organisation.
Terry Barnett of Cambridge working on putting lids and straws into plastic bottles, a contract Achievement House has with a manufacturer while David Peacock of Hamilton works in the background. Photos: Mary Anne Gill.
Gail Longley of Hamilton puts stickers on bottles using a system devised to assist her and other workers at Achievement House.
And that means picking up more contracts like the ones they have with Shoof and Industrial Fittings and looking at jobs in the community for the 40 staff who all have a disability of some sort but the work they do is vital to the organisations who utilise their skills.
“They’re just doing it at their own time and their own skill ability and that’s what we’re here to support them with,” says Scott who was appointed to the board in August last year and asked to step in as interim manager soon after.
“We have our existing commercial customers, but we want to expand,” she says.
“We are a manufacturing plant for people with disabilities which enables them to work.
“Getting disabled people into employment is really exciting.”
Inside Achievement House.
She describes the work they do as putting parts of things together which a robot or processing plant cannot – bolts, sockets, plastic bottles, lids and parts – adapting the process to suit staff.
“So, if someone for example isn’t able to count, we have a board they put out and they fill those and then they’re packaged up.
“It’s adaptive employment within supported employment.
“I never think of it as tokenism. I think it’s giving people an opportunity at their abilities to do a job. It’s a stepping stone for individuals to get a routine in a safe environment, but this is a workplace. You don’t come here and not work.”
Staff sign employment contracts, fill in time sheets, ask for annual leave, call in sick and most importantly, get paid.
“They are working in a workshop style environment, and I think that’s what makes it different to many other disability services,” says Scott who lives in Cambridge with husband Roger and son Oliver.
Her career in the sector began as a 17-year-old support worker and she went on to be a project manager working with the police on youth and alcohol-related harm and in recent times chief executive at Enrich Group in Te Awamutu.
She now works as a contractor in the sector.
Within Achievement House she wants to increase the organisation’s role into more health and wellness aspects.
“That’s what we really need to be mindful of. We’re talking about people that haven’t got the same access to (other) full time employment.”
Funding is complicated and even more so since disability support services transferred back to the Ministry of Social Development and Disability Issues minister Louise Upston commissioned an independent review of the system.
Achievement House parts put together.
The minimum wage exemption scheme remains in place and the government supports initiatives which enhance the employment prospects of disabled people.
The wage exemption formula, as an example, takes an activity that should take five minutes and compares it with a disability provider that has someone with one arm or an intellectual disability, among other things, which makes them slower physically or cognitively.
The task may take eight minutes so the scheme tops that up.
“It’s about taking the ability of the person and then working at their pace so there’s no stress, but they are still in paid employment,” Scott says.
“If we’re not churning out quality products, then we don’t get new contracts. And I think that’s commendable to everyone that’s worked here for 50 years. People keep coming back to us because the quality is phenomenal.”
Clients can come in and see the team at work.
Inside the Achievement House, from left supervisor Bud Burrows, programme supervisor Shelby McClelland and interim manager Karen Scott.
“They’re getting their disability awareness and awareness of people with differences and stuff through a completely different way that you don’t have in a day-to-day workplace.
“And if anyone’s ever worked with someone with disabilities, they are sticklers to the rules, so if you say to them ‘this is what you have to do in this time frame’, it’s done,” says Scott.
“Oh, and if we were inferior, we wouldn’t keep getting contracts.
“It might not be the traditional workplace that people know, but it’s a workplace where people come to work at their rate and their ability for paid employment.”
Scott believes there are other businesses in Waipā or the greater Waikato that would benefit from Achievement House’s expertise and other disability organisations they could partner with.
“We are a stepping stone.”
From left: Terry Barnett (Cambridge), Mykal Dimond-Grey (Hmn), Shelby McClelland (Cambridge), Michael Dodds (Cambridge), Ricky Robson (Cambridge), Theresa Rippey (Cambridge), Carl Smith (Cambridge).
