Blue eyes – Fabric workshop

You know, there are moments, situations, and people that touch you deeply from the very beginning. I’ll always remember them. Whenever a similar situation arises again, they come to mind. You’ll hear news of them, or meet them again. That’s what Vlad was like. Vladut. Blue eyes.

This was my first day at headquarters after being transferred from another project to the fabric lab. I was there to visit and get to know the new team. I conducted interviews, took photos, and gathered everything I needed for the job within two days. It was January, so I brought warm clothes, and my laptop bag and backpack were stuffed full of all sorts of things. (I don’t want to go into the details, but I need to get the gist; it’s important for what follows.)

We started the day with the communication session. I kept it in Recicleta’s office, thanks to the generosity of colleagues in this program who didn’t need all the space at the time. There was only one young man there, sitting at the desk. I greeted him in passing, distracted, agitated, excited, with my mind on my own. He replied, but didn’t look up from his computer much. He continued to mind his own business. We made ourselves comfortable, went through the meeting, then had to move to the front office for the next tasks of the day. Colleagues in Bucharest quickly «moved in». I tried it myself and found that I’m faster if I get all my stuff out at once. I put the backpack on one shoulder, the bag with the chargers and other devices on the other, the jacket under my arm, on the laptop I placed the diary, the pens, the coffee, the water, the mouse and I walked with small steps towards the door, careful not to fall, slip or spill everything. I hadn’t considered the door closed, so I stopped uncertainly in front of it. Returning to the office with all the tephras in my arms seemed impossible. «Excuse me, can you open the door for me, please?…» I decided to ask the worried young man.

«Are you leaving or staying?»

And then I saw it. And I was speechless. He stood up, using two crutches. He had no right leg. He came towards me smiling the kindest, most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen this winter. With red cheeks: You know how those children suddenly feel intimidated, when the blush covers the tips of their ears. And with absolute blue eyes. Leaning on that gray crutch, he opened the door for me, smiling.

«I’ve tried several prostheses over the years. Not the most expensive ones, it’s true, because I can’t afford them. But so far only crutches have made me feel good, relaxed,» Vlăduț tells me on the day it was his turn for the interview. He is as smiling and serene as the day I met him. He is not the first person with a disability that I have met in my experience as a social reporter, then as a manager in projects with beneficiaries belonging to the category of disadvantaged young people – with deficiencies or health problems. But it’s one of the ones that struck me the most. With history, with acceptance, with adaptation and above all with optimism and kindness that would make any other human being with 2 hands and 2 legs, «normal» as they say, envious.

The story happened just before his twelfth birthday. He had just come home from school. He had mounted his bicycle and was sitting like that, undecided. «What are you doing, are you leaving or staying, my grandmother asked me, God forgive her. I know, we looked at each other like that, for a long time. And finally we left. In 2 hours we were at the hospital.»

fortune

Vlăduț then left home, from Bacău, with his sister and two cousins, to the Galbeni Dam, on the Siret River, located 12-13 kilometers from the city. They wanted to photograph the landscape. Courageously, he climbed a large boulder weighing about one and a half tons. In a moment of inattention, he slipped and the rock rolled over him. He amputated his right leg on the spot.

He was conscious the whole time, he saw the people gathered around him, the ambulances, the people lifting the huge stone, he saw the stretcher. He didn’t just look at his feet, no one left him until the next day, when he said to himself: I still have it on the left, I was lucky. The acceptance was more sudden than one might imagine.

After five weeks of hospitalization, Vlăduț returned home. It wasn’t easy to adapt, but the family supported him every second with everything necessary. During his recovery, he spent his time unraveling the mysteries of computers and windows, offering his services for a fee. A year later he returned to the bicycle, which is still his favorite means of transport today. And he started playing football again.

“I think I broke about 10-12 pairs of crutches on the field. But nothing can stop me from playing the sports I liked as a child,” smiles Vlăduț, with the same teenage blush on his cheeks.

Experiences that make him grow

Since the chances of him having a natural evolution in his hometown were too few, his parents encouraged him to go to Italy, to his aunt. He remained there for a year and a half, during which he continued to practice his favorite sports. Thus he was contacted by a football team made up of people with limb amputations, but the training base was 300 kilometers away, he could not walk often. He wanted to participate in Paralympic cycling, but also polo, being a good swimmer. But he needed a disability certificate issued in Italy. And before any effort to set it in motion, the pandemic arrived. Then he returned home.

«I worked in Bacău, I was hired for short periods, but it wasn’t what I wanted, what I knew I could do, where I wanted to develop. Most of the time I was rejected even by companies that officially supported people with disabilities. No, unfortunately Bacău was not a place where people like me could live with dignity, with personal and professional satisfaction», says Vlăduț, but he was not affected in any way. But only with extra experience. This determined him not to give up his ideals and to always seek to obtain more. Because he knows he can and he deserves it. And that he will always have the support of his family throughout this process.

The workshop was waiting for him

Just like he knows his friends have been by his side since he was 12 years old. Even one of them, who moved to Bucharest, called him to live together. It was the capital, certainly the opportunities were different. Then, in early 2022, he moved. On OLX he immediately found the job advert at Atelier. CV sent. And within a week he was already the youngest member of the team.

«They welcomed me warmly from the beginning. And Andreea (the project manager) helped me a lot. Of course I still have moments of searching, of indecision at times. But I recover quickly,» he smiles sweetly. «That’s why from June to October I took a break, I didn’t know exactly whether to stay in Bucharest. It’s not easy even in large developed cities. You can see in groups of people with disabilities that the general concern is to find partners in relationships. I don’t work. Not interesting topics. Doing performance sports alone is too expensive. The alternative would be to have relationships, the so-called «piles». I returned. And it was as if everyone was waiting for me, that’s exactly how I felt when I entered the door of the laboratory again.»

«I wouldn’t change anything about my life»

Now Vlăduț works at the Laboratory, with a working time of 4 hours. Another 4 hours of work in Recicleta, to obtain a better financial income. He wants to stay in Viitor Plus as long as possible. But he won’t turn down any other opportunity if it comes his way. He’s good at what he does and he knows it. And learn every day to become even better.

«For now I don’t want to leave where I am. Right now I’m here and I enjoy every experience. I like what I do, how I live, I have a family that supports me, I have friends, I have a job where I feel good. No, I wouldn’t change anything about my life. I’m fine the way I am and my life has made me this way.»

I don’t know what else I did that day in January, right after Vladuț opened the door for me. I stuttered, I left immediately, I don’t know anymore. Of course I wanted to cry. And even though I know him better now, even though I know that he is one of the most dignified PEOPLE I have ever met and that pity, compassion, tears are the last things he would want, Vlăduț-Ochi-Albaștri, only 23 years old, wakes me up every time with a lump in my throat. But not out of sadness. But it’s an emotion, an amazement, a joy to have met such a beautiful person like him. From the inside out and back.

UPDATE

From the time I documented this article until now, there has been another change in Vlăduț’s professional life. He took his full-time job at Recicleta, now holding the position of logistics coordinator. And this is first and foremost due to the fact that – perhaps Vlăduț isn’t sure what impression he left on the teams he worked in or where he works – he was constantly encouraged to get involved and evolve.

“After he returned to the workshop, I suggested he participate in as many projects and activities as possible so his colleagues could recognize his abilities. It was entirely his own effort. He was also eager for change and immediately agreed to participate in all subsequent activities, regardless of the specific project. Now his career situation has significantly improved. Florin, the head of Recicleta, recognized his talent from the beginning and offered him the position of logistics coordinator—a position that not only pays better but is also beneficial to his career development and opens up new opportunities,” added Andreea Dobre, head of Atelier de Pânză, in this article.

As you know, this textile workshop is a social enterprise with legal sheltered workshop qualifications. Over 50% of the employees are people with disabilities. Here, they find a safe workplace, gain a sense of security and belonging, regain confidence and potential, enhance self-esteem, and are helped to reintegrate into the workplace after accidents or serious illnesses.