Musings About People With Disabilities, El Salvador, and Ceramics

Some of you know that I have a desire, interest, and a calling to work with people with “disabilities”, or more generally, people who might be known as “the least of these” for any reason: disabilities, poverty, minorities, hurting, left out, and generally anybody else that is looked down on in popular society. Before I left home back in September, I knew that something I would love to learn more about is the condition, care, and situations of people in El Salvador with mental and physical disabilities. If there ever was an “at-risk” population, it is people in an impoverished nation that often do not have the capabilities to make contributions that are deemed worthwhile by society and are thus deemed inferior. With minimal pre- and post-natal care often being the norm in El Salvador, I know that many people have moderate to severe disabilities in El Salvador. Where, what, and how are these people in El Salvador? While visiting in San Ramón, I had a brief encounter with a young woman with Downs Syndrome, and daily I talk with a man with disabilities who walks around in the neighborhood of my house and school.


I was pleased, then, to find out that in my afternoon “political and cultural program”, we were to visit a location where people with physical and mental disabilities worked. Many people in El Salvador make and try to sell crafts, and the previous day, I had been thinking about how great it would be if a community or cooperative in El Salvador could produce high quality “artsy-looking” dinnerware that they could export to middle- and upper-classes in other countries. Well, to my surprise, when I walked in this place for people with disabilities not knowing what to expect, I found just what I had thought about the previous day—gorgeous, unique, festive, and “artsy” dinnerware like plates, cups, bowls, and vases. We chatted with the woman who ran the store and who was constrained to a wheelchair because of her physical disabilities. She told us that some of the greatest problems for people with disabilities are transportation (neither the sidewalks nor the buses here are user-friendly, much less accommodating to disabilities), work, and thus a livable income. The ceramics-making shop and store, which is called Shicali Ceramics, was begun in 1982 by people desiring professional and inclusion for people with disabilities. Currently, there are 6 full-time employees with disabilities and 40+ part-time employees with disabilities. Shicali sells to 10,000 Villages in the United States and to other stores, restaurants, and hotels in the US, Canada, and Europe. In a behind-the-scenes tour of the ceramics production process, we saw the firing of the ceramics and the detailing and painting of the ceramics. I want to return at a time when the “dirt” is being made into clay and the ceramics being shaped on a potter’s wheel, and I promise to take pictures.

In addition to my ongoing interest in people with disabilities, in the past few weeks, I have had an additional connection with people with disabilities. For the past few weeks, I have had the “disability” of not being able to communicate with others. (In drawing this comparison, I don’t want to undermine the difficulties incurred by people with real disabilities, but I have learned through this experience.) If you think about it, one of the key problems for people with disabilities is their lack of ability to communicate as the rest of us do. People with autism, Downs Syndrome, cerebral palsy and other mental and developmental disorders have such a hard time communicating effectively with others. Even people with physical disabilities have difficulty communicating if you consider the great importance of first visual impressions in our perceptions of others. I’ve experienced how demeaning it is to be ignored in a conversation with people who can communicate better than I can. For people not even to make eye contact with me in a group conversation because they think (often rightly, especially the first few weeks :-) ) that I don’t understand. A group leader forgot my name even after being around me for 2 weeks, apparently because I couldn’t generate enough input to make myself memorable. There’s been so many times when I wanted to contribute to a conversation but didn’t know the words to do so and ended up standing around awkwardly, with my confidence all the time decreasing.

The Shicali ceramics shop creates dignity who face these difficulties and MANY MANY MORE SERIOUS ONES every day (not just for a couple weeks while I learn the appropriate language :-)). Employees receive training in the ceramics trade and have diversity in the types of tasks that they can do (so it is not unbearably monotonous), and Shicali has generated enough demand for their products that employees receive a dependable and livable wage. Moreover, Shicali has work that is interesting and dignifying for men with disabilities—and if you are asking why that is important, consider that much of the work offered in many other industries for people with disabilities caters toward the interests and abilities of women. Moreover, the ratio of men to women who are diagnosed with autism is 3:1.

Shicali is a great example of something that El Salvador (and the world in general) needs more of: opportunities for people with disabilities to have dignity. The situation is especially desperate for people born into poverty with disabilities. Families cannot provide sufficient resources to their children who are strong and healthy, so we can only imagine the strain children with disabilities put on these families. Currently there is another disabled population in El Salvador that needs attention: the tens of thousands of people injured during the war. The governments of countries like El Salvador do not provide special re sources for people with disabilities such as education and medical care (at least in the US, they usually get some form of education). There is only one other place that offers opportunities like Shicali in San Salvador, and there are none that we know of in the campo and communities of the country. I will be keeping my eyes and ears open as I work and live in the communities for the existing needs and ideas for increasing the dignity of people with disabilities in El Salvador.