Social and Employment
Place
Germany, North Rhine-Westphalia
Sponsor
Werner Kaulich
Grant(s)
50,000 € to the Selection Committee at 2004/11/30
Project leader
Atelier Praunheimer Werkstätten
« The workshop's continuous, solid growth over the past few years proves its ability to professionally manage work on competitive markets with handicapped employees… Each time I go there, I am impressed by their optimism and their success. »
Werner Kaulich
In the Frankfurt region, the Praunheimer Werkstätten workshop employs nearly six hundred mentally handicapped individuals. To guarantee that it is profitable while offering varied jobs to its employees, it has widened its scope of activity through the years. In this way, Praunheimer Werkstätten works in the fields of packaging, mailshot distribution, gardening, carpentry, and metal working. A few years ago, it opened a new department for records recycling and conversion, which now generates the highest portion of its turnover.
Eight new recruits
Bolstered by its initial results, the workshop decided to expand this activity: it just won a new records processing contract which will create eight new jobs, opening up the prospect for it to double its turnover within the next two years. However, in order to honour this new contract, it will need to obtain new machines and expand its workshop areas. It cannot benefit from public aid since it “only” needs to expand its business (it is not creating a new one), Praunheimer Werkstätten turned towards private support. Along with a dozen small businesses which will volunteer their services to refurbish the new workshop, the Veolia foundation decided to donate 50,000 euros with will go towards the purchase of essential new equipment.