Staff with disabilities ready for customers, at A'Gan Restaurant, in Changchun, on May 19 [Photo by Wang Zhendong/ chinajilin.com.cn]

The city of Changchun, in Jilin province has a restaurant called A'Gan, that has found a way to help employ and train people with mental health problems, the first restaurant of its kind in China, helping people with disabilities work as waiters, along with the normal staff.

The restaurant opened on May 19 with 12 of these new waiters learning from their co-workers and getting individual tutoring to guide them in their daily routine, allowing them to earn a salary by themselves.

The owner of the 600-square-meter restaurant that serves local cuisine, Hu Yanping, explains that the new employees insurance is also covered by the restaurant, and that the 12 workers are divided into two groups, each working half a day. After they pass a probation period and could do the job all by themselves, they will get a salary increase and can live in a staff dormitory.

Hu says that she has also opened a bank account for each of them to help them save money and that their main tasks are to serve food and do some cleaning, while the kitchen work is handled only by the regular employees.

The head of the Changchun Employment Center for the Disabled, Xu Dejun, explains that around 60 people with mental disabilities took part in the training program before it opened to the public and that the 12 are the beneficiaries and qualified to take the job.

Zhang Baolin, president of China Association for People with Mental Disabilities and Relatives, praised this latest attempt to make the disabled with a part of the ordinary world and emphasized the importance of support of this kind that is becoming more popular internationally.

Zhang concluded by saying, "Our task is to help the disabled blend in with ordinary folk, awaken their self-awareness and help them earn their own salary and relieve their families of the burden," then added that they will promote this approach in other parts of China.

Edited by Roger Bradshaw