{"id":184374,"date":"2018-06-26T08:21:24","date_gmt":"2018-06-26T13:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=184374"},"modified":"2018-06-21T14:10:26","modified_gmt":"2018-06-21T19:10:26","slug":"pizzeria-employees-down-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pizzeria-employees-down-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"Pizzeria in Rome highlights dedicated employees with Down syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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La Locanda dei Girasoli<\/a> is a pizzeria in Rome, Italy, which might not seem unusual at all… except for the fact that the majority of the restaurants employees have Down syndrome or some other type of disability.<\/p>\n

The website for La Locanda dei Girasoli states (translated from Italian),\u00a0“We are a welcoming Restaurant – Pizzeria that since 1999 combines the love for quality cuisine with the social and working inclusion of young people with Down syndrome, Williams syndrome and specific disabilities.” The business’s stated overall objective is “to promote the employment of people with Down syndrome, ennobling and giving dignity to the person through an individual path, training and job placement.”<\/p>\n

The restaurant’s “about us” page notes that the goal of employing persons with disabilities is “not with the goal of eliminating the ‘disadvantage'”\u00a0<\/b>but to instead “break[] down the cultural barriers” that often lead people with disabilities to experience “marginalization, loneliness and abandonment.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Some individual employee biographies are even featured on the website. The video below from In The Know shows the smiling, hardworking employees, adding that the restaurant “was founded in 2000 by a family who wanted to create a positive environment for their son and others with Down syndrome.”<\/p>\n