Intelsius in Partnership with CARES

At Intelsius, we’re proud to work in partnership with some fantastic charitable organisations, whether it be planting trees, protection our oceans, or supporting disabled people into work by learning vital skills and gaining confidence in the workplace.

Pharmacold, a key distribution partner of Intelsius based in Madrid , have recently struck a partnership with CARES, a charity based in Madrid and Barcelona, providing paid work experiences to disabled people. In this blog we outline the nature of this partnership, and how it’s supporting disabled people into work in Spain.

Who are Cares?

CARES is a non-profit sheltered employment centre founded in 1998.  They offer employment opportunities to people with disabilities, help them improve their professional skills and experience, and  finally, support them in the process of finding a job in the general employment market.

In order to offer job opportunities to their workers, they offer logistics and supply chain services: handling activities, warehouse management, reverse logistics, freight transport, waste management, and industrial maintenance. They also offer a service of recruiting and mentoring to  companies who are looking for logistics professionals with disabilities to join their company.

What is the nature of the partnership with Intelsius?

Pharmacold, who distribute cold chain packaging solutions across Spain and Portugal, were looking for a Madrid-based provider who were in the social enterprise space, and ere introduced to CARES at an event in Barcelona.

Pharmacold provide temperature-controlled packaging (TCP) solutions to CARES, who’s employees then condition and build packaging solutions ready for dry ice, 2-8 and 15-25 shipments, to be sent onto logistics providers and customers working within the cold chain logistics space.

This process gives vital first-hand experience and confidence to CARES’ disabled employees.

They have a team of four working on this specific project, with a range of disabilities and impairments. We ensure that that the team assigned to any project have the physical abilities to deliver a high standard of logistics support, which in this case involves building and pre-conditioning TCP.

How does this benefit your employees in the long-term?

CARES ensure that they match individuals with tasks that can help them develop confidence and key experience for their future within the common employment market.

They see people develop new skills, confidence, flexibility, and a more open mind to a variety of work opportunities. Last year, CARES employed 371 workers (annual average); 78.9% of them were people with disabilities. Currently they employ 4 people in the activity involving the Intelsius boxes.

We spoke to some of the CARES team working on the Pharmacold project:

José Ángel, team supervisor:

“The fact of carrying out work that is meant for the pharmaceutical sector, handling boxes for the transport of medicines that will be used to treat people, increased the team motivation, as they are working to help people improve and recover their health, and this made their everyday work meaningful”.

Maria Victoria, worker conducting the activity:

“I had to learn Microsoft Office, especially Excel, because I was not used to work with this programme, so I took an Excel course to improve my skills. For this activity we need to know how to operate Microsoft Excel to do the work order, the temperature verification, the delivery note… Learning this activity has been a challenge for me, but now I’m happy to work in it”.

“Before, I was more closed-minded: if I did an activity, I focused only on that activity and I was not able to multitask. Now, at Fundación CARES, I have learned about the different activities that are carried out in the warehouse and I can do them all, I’m more adaptable and I’ve improved my computer skills”.

José Miguel, team supervisor:

“Managing a work team with people with special difficulties is very satisfying, because you see the progress they make. And carrying out this activity, which requires very critical control of the temperature, with the staff that is part of the CARES Foundation, shows me that the people in the team are committed to the work and strive so that the result of each day is better than the previous one. I had never worked before with people for whom their work was so important.”

You can find out more about CARES and their fantastic work at their website here.

Partnering with Intelsius

At Intelsius, partnering with charitable organisations across the environmental and social development space is a core part of our identity, and we’re always looking at ways to positively impact both our natural environment, and our local communities, whether that be at our HG in York, UK, or in and around our global offices and distributors.

You can find out more about our charitable partnerships here.

Or, to explore potential partnerships with Intelsius or our distributors, get in touch with us by clicking here.

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