Entrepreneurial Empowerment of People with Special Needs in Ondo and Osun States , Nigeria

This paper examined the motivational factors for entrepreneurial empowerment of people with special needs, and determined the level of knowledge, skills, attitudes and competences that are necessary to become self-employed and contribute to individual growth and societal development rather than living in poverty, liabilities as beggars along the roads in Ondo and Osun states, Nigeria. Exploratory survey was adopted, using interviews and focus group discussion. The study revealed that most deaf and dumb in the societies who are involved in entrepreneurial skills development are cobblers, dry cleaners, tailors, bricklayers, carpenters, and hair dressers; while some disabled are into music, typing, teaching and trading. At the same time many are still depending on members of the society for survival. Many disabled are not motivated into engaging in entrepreneurial activities as the attitude of the society towards them does not indicate these people could be useful in different entrepreneurial activities of their abilities, while some families use their disabilities as sources of income. It is therefore recommended that parents should understand that no matter the nature of their children’s disability, individual is useful in one area or the other; people with special needs should be encouraged to engage themselves in entrepreneurial skills development and establish them after graduation. Members of the society and the government in particular should create avenues to identify areas where each disabled is gifted, develop them to be useful for themselves and the development of the society.


Introduction
People that the society noticed are having any form of deformity were in the past referred to as disabled people.The approach has changed as these people frowned at being called disabled but instead are now addressed as people with special needs.There is nobody in the society that does not have any form of deformity, it is those whose deformities are pronounced that people take to be in need of special attention.The need for special attention of some people may be from birth, some through home accident, motor accident or job hazard, while some are as a result of ageing.Whatever might have been the cause of their disability, individual in the society make use of all the amenities being enjoyed by normal human beings working in the society, even some people with special needs produce more children than other set of people.At the same time, some of these people are exaggerating any little disability they are having to be on the streets pleading for arms instead of going to the schools for their group or learning a skill to empower themselves to guide against becoming nuisance to members of the society.
Disability is a difficulty or activity limitation encountered by a person in executing an action or a task.It is a problem experienced by an individual as a result of restriction in participation or involvement in situations of life.When we talk of disabilities, it varies in type, stability, severity, time of onset and duration.These different characteristics always influence the capacity and willingness of individual so as to become entrepreneurs in order to sustain that type of position.This set of people need to be selfemployed as it will help in sustaining them than workload in terms of paid employment; work location and work schedule which will give room for better lifestyle and management of these people with disability (European Union,2014).Different types of disability influence the rate at which they participate in entrepreneurial activities.Citing Jones (2011), employment rates and earnings are some of the barriers people with disabilities face in entrepreneurial activities and general labour market.Discrimination by employer has a strong impact on the provision of job for people with special needs, while those who are working are often employed in low skilled and low paying occupations (Meager and Higgins, 2011).Although the ability of individual to do some work could easily be assessed by the employer of labour.Burchardt (2003), stressed experiences of disability always differ, no two experiences are the same, while people with special needs are not equally disadvantaged when they get to the labour market.
This study on entrepreneurial empowerment of people with special needs is unique as it is ready to expose the efforts and weaknesses of some people with special needs towards the development of Nigeria as nobody is without its own importance in the society, but it depends on individual determination.This is in support of the European Union (European Commission, 2010), which has supported the active participation of people with special needs in areas of economy and societal development.Also, the Europe 2020 has planned to create sustainable growth to build a society that involves everyone, it has been to tackle problems militating against maximum involvement of people with special needs in the society.Nigeria has also seen the importance of the contributions of everybody to the development of the country no matter their disability, citing Pagan, (2009), it will give them the opportunity to participate in the labour market which will improve their level of income and standard of living.Entrepreneurial empowerment of people with special needs will provide them with the opportunity to take control of their disabilities and participate in goods production, be economically and socially active in their society.Seelman, (2008), observed when the ability of an individual to participate in entrepreneurial activities increases, their self-esteem, confidence and likelihood of starting a business or entrepreneurial involvement also increases.
The study will enable individual in Nigeria, Ondo and Osun states in particular to see the need to encourage persons with special needs the importance of making use of any active part of their body to be productive for their sources of income.The research will encourage people with special needs to understand that some of them that are empowered are wealthy, which should be a form of motivation to discourage them from pleading for alms from members of the public.Also, according to Sans-Bobi, Contreras and Sanchez (2002), the study will expose people with special needs to entrepreneurship with the use of technologies, as these technologies may include artificial limbs, retina implants, and specialized computer software.Green and Blair, (2011) also referred to the first recognition system and the first Optical Character recognition technology invented by Curzwell in 1975 which allows the translation of written text into digital language.The study will encourage the states and federal government the importance of encouraging, motivating by assisting financially and materially and identifying the different talents of each disabled person in the society.
Nigeria as a developing nation cannot do without entrepreneurial activities which are necessary to make her compete in all ramifications with other nations of the world.According to Aruma (2013), entrepreneur simply means the art or science of innovation and risk taking for profit in business or possession of business enterprise.This implies that at any point in a nation's development, entrepreneurial activities are necessary.This should involve the participation of everybody in the society.Individual needs to look for business opportunity, bring together different resources like people, capital and materials, manage these resources by taking care of risks that may crop in and later enjoy the reward.Entrepreneur is concerned with identifying an opportunity that is relating to the satisfaction of needs and converting it to a product or service of value.Entrepreneur occurs when there is a desire to produce new things like goods, services, processes or approaches, or improving on existing ones and profiting from it.Thus, entrepreneurial activity in a nation does not exclude the disabled who are referred to as people with special needs.It is necessary to improve on their existing skills, while those who are not engaged in any form of entrepreneurial activities are to learn any trade or skill of their interest to improve their sources of income.
Acknowledging the importance of entrepreneurial activities for the development of a nation, the Federal Government of Nigeria came up with a new curriculum for the secondary school students in 2013 (National Primary Education) to include different entrepreneurial programmes for students to offer in schools.The National Policy on Education (2013) made it clear that entrepreneurial empowerment is an instrument to develop an individual and the nation in general.To this end, the disabled could be involved in different entrepreneurial activities, although they have different forms of deformity, they could still involve themselves in different entrepreneurial empowerment which could improve their standard of living.Entrepreneurial activities could be found in all fields of human endeavor.For a disabled to be successful in his entrepreneur, he/she needs to adopt pleasant human relations and adapt easily to environmental changes.All these are expected to be achieved in the daily activities of the disabled in order to make ends meet.They need to be honest in their work so as to encourage societal patronage of their products since the physical movement of some of them is limited.
Through adult education, non-formal education has been found to be influencing vocational development in order to empower members of the society.Anyanwu (2000), Omolewa(2000), and Akintayo (2003) asserts that non-formal education programmes tends to foster participation of recipient in investment income generating activities, which leads to improvement in their standard of living.Thus, non-formal education programme can be used to empower people with special needs with a view to reducing their socio-psychological trauma occasioned by their natural or accidental circumstances, it could be through literacy education of Soap making, Apprenticeship, Tie and dye, Cassava processing, Cake baking, Hair platting, Nylon making, Snail breeding, Honey production, Bread baking, Dress making, Bead making, Tailoring services, Poultry keeping, Shoe making, Shoe repairing, Fishing; House or Vehicle painting; Motor vehicle mechanic; Poultry keeping; Izal and Insecticide making.All these entrepreneurial empowerments and many others could be put in place for the disabled for the purpose of empowering them for better functioning and the promotion of selfreliance, Akintayo (2003).Therefore, this paper will look into the different literatures of some scholars relating to the objectives of this study, methods employed to collect facts from respondents, results of the research, discussion of findings, policy implications, conclusion, recommendations and references used in the paper.

Review of related literature
The engagement of people with special needs is necessary for a society to be able to cater for the citizens.As people with special needs will need all necessary social amenities being enjoyed by every other person in the society, thus, it is necessary for the disabled to contribute their own quota for economic development.It is necessary for each of these people to learn a skill depending on their disability.Some disabled men and women are effective in their daily entrepreneurial activities.There are cases where the disabled perform better than the people without physical disability.These entrepreneurial activities are convenient with the provision of materials for their disability, this is in support of Rowlands (2016), observed that wheelchairs, hearing aids, white canes, and braille typewriters are some of the products that help people with special needs to participate fully in everyday life.
Disability is a generic group, it has a vast scope, and its impact is complex and cannot easily be generalised.There is the need to see whether a person's disability accrues any practical barrier to entrepreneurship -like backing business finance, which are linked to an ability effectively pitch for support and selling the product, a person's disability accrues any personal barriers particularly in terms of self-efficacy and their corresponding scope of ambition (Tania Watson 2013).The environment has a lot to do with the success and failure of such endeavor, since the environment can be one which is enabling or otherwise.The person with disability view of self and their self-efficacy can also contribute significantly, Manyumwa (2013).Social environment includes people with or without disabilities.Djordjevic ( 2013) suggested other people with disabilities must be equal in all daily activities; this can be solved only through education.Other barriers that people with disabilities have can only be solved by client examination of the user-survey in some specific area or country, so also the use of exchange of information from different backgrounds and countries so that the story could be expanded.
The level of mental health can affect the ability of someone with disabilities to become successful as an entrepreneur.Psychotic depression can hinder learning a skill.As someone who attempted to become an entrepreneur and failed, a supportive environment cannot help if mental health problem is there, Smith (2013).In Africa, a person with disability who lives in a rural area and being a female is more likely to be marginalized in relation to access to capital, entrepreneurship, training and social resources.Many male entrepreneurs with disabilities are driven into businesses out of the need to stop depending on others for help, and because it is hard for them to find gainful employment due to limited formal education Katongole (2013).According to people's experience working with people with disability, their self-image, difficulty in movement, capital constraints and business skills are the major barriers for them to involve in entrepreneur achievement.For example, a student from School for the Handicapped at Oyo, in Oyo state, Nigeria, needed just #70,000 to buy the necessary equipment after graduation was seen going round begging for money, but the government should always come to the assistance of these students on graduation.This has been in support of the view of Smith (2013) 2011).Greve (2009) opined that in the last few years, there has been a visible shift at the European level towards integrating people with disabilities into the labour market.Unfortunately, however, the direct impact of programmes has not been monitored and evaluated because the majority of cases, programmes have been complemented through traditional procedures and without alternative support.Practices identified as effective includes vocational training programmes that establish specific measures for learners and employers, such as funding for the adaptation of infrastructure and work places and tax incentives (Shima I.;Zolyomi E. and Zaidi A.2008).
Socrates, through its community action programmes, the European Commission (1995,2000)  Societal attitude and factors like family stress, abuse or neglect, and parental illness worsen the condition of the disabled.Some families take the disabled as a burden on them.Government policies are not in place to make the disabled be interested in entrepreneurial activities, while training programmes have failed to encourage or accommodate the participation of disabled persons.In some cases, the training available to them is obsolete and has failed to make appropriate links for the disabled to be self-employed or employers of labour.Many disabled are in states of poverty and are excluded from their societies.Adult education is based on learning, the development of an individual, how each member of the society can use the available resources around him to improve his standard of living.Adult education is on acquisition of knowledge and skill, it is lifelong, life wide and life deep.It is on this note that Explorative approach will be used to explore the objectives of the topic as the paper will help to contribute to knowledge in the area of social welfare, an aspect of adult education.The research objectives of this paper are to; (i) Investigate areas of entrepreneurial activities people with special needs engage themselves.
(ii) Examine the factors motivating people with special needs to engage in entrepreneurial activities.
(iii) Examine the attitudes of people with special needs towards entrepreneurial empowerment.

Methods
This study was carried out among people with special needs in Ondo and Osun states.Explorative technique of data collection was employed to collect the primary data.Davies (2006) opines that, exploratory research is concerned with discovery and generating theory.Exploratory research always rely on secondary research like the review of available data or literature, it could also be qualitative approaches such as information discussion, focus group discussion, observation, in -depth interview, case or pilot studies, or project methods.Thus, facts were collected from some people with special needs through interviews and focus group discussion.Ten (10) people from each state were interviewed, making a total of twenty (20) participants, while five (5) people who can talk were involved in focus group discussion in each of the state, making the total to be ten.The total population for the study was thirty (30).Data collected were analysed using content analysis and presented thematically.
Findings revealed that some people with special needs are not minding their areas of disability but instead are engaging in entrepreneurial activities by making use of other functioning parts of their body for their survival, while majority of them are using any little disability to be lazy and living a dependent life, while some members of their families depend on the money collected by their disabled people for survival instead of encouraging them to be skillfully employed.The paper is going to expose different people with special needs on the achievements of their counterparts with special needs who are skillfully empowered and have not been laying too much emphasis on their disability.The society will be able to understand the factors that can motivate persons with special needs to involve themselves in entrepreneurial activities, these are encouraging them to attend schools for people with special needs where they will be taught different skills in areas of their ability or learn a skill in the public establishments, and the need to buy required equipment for them to settle after gaining their freedom.Also, the negative attitudes of some persons to entrepreneurial empowerment should change to engaging in at least a skill, this will guide against turning themselves into nuisance in the society as there is ability in disability.Making them to see how some of them performed excellently in the Paralympic Rio 2016 making Nigeria great among other nations of the world, while those who are already having skills are appreciated, this will make the government and the society see the need to encourage and assist in any area of their endeavor for national development.

Socio-demographic characteristics of people with special needs
The socio-demographic characteristics of people with special needs revealed that out of the 20 that were observed and interviewed, eight were deaf and dumb, six were blind and six had deformed legs.Out of the ten participants in the focus group discussions, only two are crippled in the two legs while the remaining eight (8) had one of the two legs deformed.All the participants are married, none of them had less than four children, while a beggar with one leg is married with two wives and nine children.This shows the emphasis attached to having children in Nigerian culture.All the eight deaf and dumb are empowered in different entrepreneurial activities.Out of the six that were blind, one is a student in a University, while the remaining five are not economically productive.Out of the ten participants used for focus group discussions that are physically challenged, none of them is involved in any entrepreneurial activity but are active biologically and are all beggars.

Entrepreneurial empowerment of people with special needs
The participants were asked of their areas of livelihood, some were observed in their places of work, while some are not having any skill.

Interview/Observation
A deaf and dumb man at Ilare area in Ile-Ife: As a dry cleaner, I have customers all around especially in Banks, different offices, at Obafemi Awolowo University and the Teaching Hospital.I am also an employer of labour of the deaf and dumb colleagues, and well known by many people in the town.Going round in the society, it has been observed that many deaf and dumb men engaged in making and mending shoes, most of them are efficient at shoe production and have become big business men supplying their manufactured shoes to neighboring towns.As a cobbler, he is efficient in his work, people patronize him.He is married with children, and able to cater for them through this work.
Below is the picture of a deaf and dumb tailor.Neat in appearance, it is when you try to communicate with him you will understand he is deaf and dumb.He has many able-bodied men as apprenticeship in his shop.Some disabled engaged themselves in production activities, such could be found in the production of soaps and insecticides, while they also go out to sell these products.Example of such people is Mr. Solomon Layade, a cripple on wheel chair who produces Izzal (an antiseptic) and soaps, he placed the products on his wheel chair to sell.
He said: I produce these Bars of soaps and Izal myself.At times I take them to the market or stay by the road side.The work enables me to cater for my wife and children.
The researcher also observed some people with special needs at their places of work.Some disabled have been seen as hair dressers, these women have posters of different styles in their shops for customers to select their styles of interest or if you want a different style, the moment you describe the style, they will get it and do the style to your satisfaction.So also with men who can cut hair of different styles.Some of them were watched as bricklayers, iron benders, motor-mechanics, watch repairers, carpenters, cleaners and all the rest of daily endeavor.

Motivation
Some of the participants complained the money given to their group to assist in their businesses was pocketed by their leader, while some complained that as an individual have never collected any money in form of assistance from government or non-governmental organisation which could have helped them in their business.Some participants appreciated the efforts of their religious groups that provided the necessary equipment for their work, while some were motivated to be self-employed by their parents.At the same time some participants complained none of their relatives saw the need to empower them, but instead were encouraged to go out begging for alms, some claimed they and the members of their immediate family survive or depend on what they are able to collect from free givers.

Attitudes of people with special needs towards entrepreneurial activities
Focus group discussion was used to collect information from some people with special needs Why are you begging for alms instead of engaging in entrepreneurial activities?In answering this question, below are the responses of the participants.Their views are presented one after the other.
A blind man: I was a bricklayer; I was at a site for my daily work, when suddenly I could not see again.
My wife deserted me and other members of my family, then I resulted to begging, I cannot learn any other job due to my situation.
A man with one amputated leg: My family is at Nasarawa.I always come to Osogbo by joining a trailer from Nasarawa.I am married with two wives and nine children.I have never learnt any skill and I will never learn any skill, I am satisfied with begging for alms.
A man with one deformed leg: I had a motor accident which affected one of my legs.I was a shoe maker before the motor accident; I cannot go back to shoe-making because I am contented with my begging for alms.forn A cripple woman: I would have loved to learn a skill, but there is nobody to assist me financially and getting to a place where I can learn a skill will be a problem.I am married with five children.
A man with one leg amputated: I come to the market everyday like other business man, but mine is to plead for alms.This is a work, I cannot learn any skill, I am used to this work.I am a family man married with children.
A boy of about 20 years old known for begging at Ile Ife market; I prefer begging, my parents are at Modakeke.People have been asking me to carry their loads so they can give me money.I cannot do that type of work.Findings also revealed that the attitude of the disabled by refusing to be involved in entrepreneurship is increasing the rate of illiteracy in the country, because most of these people find it difficult to allow their children to go to school.Also, some disabled feel they cannot engage themselves in any entrepreneurial activity again due to their age, or because they have been so used to begging that there is no business they can do again that can fetch them such amount of money per day to cater for members of their family.

Discussion
One could observe that many of the people involved in focus group discussion did not see the importance of involving or learning any skill in order to acquire knowledge and have reliable source of income.They felt since they have one or two types of impairment, it is not necessary they should involve themselves in any entrepreneurial activity, some felt they were too old to go and learn anything, while some are satisfied with their pleading for alms.
The attitude of many disabled people towards different businesses is not encouraging.Few of these people are into entrepreneurial activities.Many of the disabled could be seen around begging for alms.Their family members do not see anything bad in their begging for alms, they are not ready to assist them to learn a skill or go into a trade.These disabled are being encouraged by their relatives to go out and plead for money, including children who are not disabled.Some religious organisations have helped to change the attitudes of some members of the society by making them to understand that their disabled children are also useful.Example of this is the School for Children with Special Needs at Ipetumodu in Osun state, a Catholic organisation that is training children on different entrepreneurial programmes.The children engaged in tie and dye, soap making, tailoring, wood work, mat making, decorations, cloth making and many others.
Through the findings of the interview carried out by the researcher, the few that are having businesses find it difficult to enjoy financial assistance from their relatives.It is disheartening to discover that some deaf and dumb shoemakers complained that their leaders or representatives were given financial assistance by the government but these people refused to circulate the money to all the members of their group.
Also, during the research, it was embarrassing to see some people with minor disabilities like somebody whose one leg is deformed with other parts of the body being complete still going around begging for money.The society does not feel that these people could be useful by contributing their own quota to the development of Nigeria.Going round our towns and villages, one could see some disabled being assisted by somebody who is not disabled to beg for alms.In the first instance, the person assisting is not productive for the society economically, whereas, the two of them will continue to have children, thereby increasing the country population.An example was one legged beggar man; during interview confessed he is having two wives and nine children.
Research also found out that the attitude of some people with special needs is so discouraging that some did not involve themselves in any good source of income, but are ready to be rich through dubious means to the extent that some have been caught involving themselves in fraudulent activities like kidnapping people for money rituals or being agents of selling stolen goods.It is believed that if at all some people with special needs cannot make use of their hands; they should be able to make use of their heads and mental capacity while those without legs can make good use of their hands, heads and mental capacity.

Challenges facing people with special needs at engaging in entrepreneurial activities
It is one thing to be interested in learning a skill, it is another thing to be able to achieve one's objectives due to some circumstances beyond one's control.As a result of this, people with special needs could have the following challenges at involving themselves in entrepreneurial activities.Some of these are discussed: Finance: For people with special needs to engage themselves entrepreneurial activities, they need money to go for training: such as training materials during their apprenticeship; to settle the boss during their freedom or graduation; to buy necessary equipment for their settlements; and acquire a shop or space to practice.Lack of fund has been a major problem facing some people from going into entrepreneurial activities.
Transportation: Getting to places where learning can take place is another problem.Some disabled people cannot walk to long distance, even those who have goods to sell.If they have money for transportation, some commercial bus or taxi drivers do not like taking them as passengers with the conviction that they waste time or may not have money to pay.
Greedy leaders: Some government officials find it difficult to allocate grants or deliver grants allocated to people with special needs to appropriate beneficiaries; instead, they divert the money for their own use.Also, some leaders among the different groups of people with special needs refuse to deliver grants meant for their group members for sharing, thereby preventing others from starting or improving on the existing entrepreneurial activities.
Neglect: People with special needs sometimes feel shy or reluctant to go out or associate with other members of the society to involve themselves in entrepreneurial activities.This could be related to the nature of members of the society still regarding the disabled as second class citizens, by making jets of people with special needs on any mistake they make, or condemning any effort they make.

Policy implications
The governmental and societal policy implications of this study:  Using it to solve the problem of people with special needs depending on members of the society for survival. Encouraging people with special needs to engage themselves in entrepreneurial activities. Alleviating the problem of poverty among many of the people with special needs in Nigeria. Enabling people with special needs to be self-employed and contribute to economic development of Nigeria which is believed to be at disarray. Constant pressure on the government for financial assistance from people with special needs will be reduced if they are all self-employed, as their entrepreneurial activities will help to increase revenue gained or received by the government yearly. Motivating people with special needs that are already empowered by providing necessary aids in the areas of their disability to be able to progress in their daily activities. Providing equipment for those who are already empowered. The government through social workers should relocate those along the streets begging, create an avenue for them to see the need to be empowered, encourage and make them learn a skill which will eventually establish them.

Conclusion
Entrepreneurship is based on social and economic reform for human capital development.It allows the disabled job opportunity other than government paid jobs which the society might deny them.Entrepreneurial activities will enable the disabled to be exposed to the world of work thereby instilling respect and dignity to them.The disabled that are skillfully empowered are seen as those who have visions and courage, also willing to back them up with hard work.They are seen as good employers of labour, good managers of resources and leaders in their own fields, while the dependent and lazy ones among them experience hunger, receive insults and neglect from members of the society, although some of the disabled beggars are having houses and university graduate children through their begging.This has not really helped them to utilize their potentials for self-empowerment, which guarantee sustainable human capital and national development.Therefore, people with special needs should involve themselves in entrepreneurial activities and stop colouring their little disability to depend on begging for survival, rather, understand there is ability in disability.The government and the society should stop pitying persons with special needs, rather assist in establishing them in areas where they are efficient, as most of them are intelligent if well utilised, most of them can perform better in their areas of specialization more than the assumed normal person if given the opportunity.If all of us come together to be productive, it will help in economic development of Nigeria.

Recommendations
Parents should allow their disabled people to engage in entrepreneurial activities and establish them after graduation.They should understand that no matter the nature of their disability, nobody is useless.
The government should encourage those with disabled people to bring them out so as to motivate and train them to be useful for themselves and the society.Enough funds should be provided and fully utilized for the assistance and establishment of the disabled.Examples are the products of Special College of Education Oyo, Oyo State.
There should be tight security for the disabled by the society and the government as they go about their entrepreneurial activities to save them from money rituals.
It is necessary that the government barn the habit of street begging and force these disabled to learn a skill, thereby reducing poverty and the rate at which some disabled have become nuisance to the society.
Proper monitoring should be done on the money being given out to different disabled groups to assist in their entrepreneurial activities, as the researcher had been told some disabled leaders are pocketing the money without allowing others to benefit from the grant.
There is the need for the disabled to be enlightened on the need for family planning, as it has been observed that these people bear as many children as they could without bothering on how to cater for them despite the fact that they are not skillfully employed.They are only exposing these children to poverty, illiteracy, early pregnancy, beggars, tugs, street boys and girls and nuisance to the entire society.
The Federal government to create organization to remove those on the need to participate in athletics, as sports will convert many on the streets to the streamline.
It is necessary to establish Adult Basic Education (ABE) which empowers and can help build broadly based civil society, ABE also removes barriers to entrepreneurship and can improve livelihood.
Above all, different higher institutions of learning, especially the Department of Adult Education should organise entrepreneurial programmes for the disabled in collaboration with different entrepreneurs in their own locations.

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: A deaf and dumb cobbler

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: A deaf and dumb tailor

Figure 4a :
Figure 4a: A street beggar Figure 4b: A deformed adult street beggar

Figure 4c :
Figure 4c: A disabled street beggar, being assisted by a normal person.
On the other side, an issue can be the provision of the aids, like what criteria must one fulfill in order to be eligible to get aids, how much can the government officers decide themselves who gets or doesn't get access to the aids.Sylvester (2013) found out in Germany: There are pretty good social laws, but the government practice prevents people from actually getting them, either it is too complicated to even find out what possibilities you might have or the allocation process is in some ways ineffective.The assistance itself can also be evaluated: Does it provide what is needed (for a broad range of possible special needs) depending on the kind of "disability" and its degree?Is it limited to certain categories of assistance, like technical, human, financial, organizational, or is it relatively open to individual's needs, or a certain budget that one can invest independently in whatever he or she might need?And if so, is the budget sufficient or far away from being that?Council of the European Union, 2004).Many member states have already implemented this directive at the national level (The Citizens Information Board, that capital is a major barrier to entrepreneur.The government claimed had provided assistance and grants to the disabled, but we have yet to see one successful entrepreneur from this group(Morizzan, 2005).There are different views from different people on motivating the disabled.One experience with assistance grants is that on the one hand, they of course can help people with special needs overcome disability issues they might have (like providing them with hearing aids which can further the communicative ability, a very important criterion in the work area).EuropeanCommission (2000), under the Employment Framework Directive aims to promote equal opportunities and combat discrimination on several grounds, including disability, in employment, selfemployment and occupation.The European Commission is responsible for monitoring Member States practices and responding to any failure to properly implement legislation, including through launching enforcement procedures in the European counts ( created special grants for young people with disabilities through various programmes at different levels.The Leonardo Da Vinci programme is dedicated to vocational education and training and aims to support the improvement of vocational training system in the member states by enhancing the language skills of participants and disseminating innovative practices in this area of work.The programme also finances projects that seek to improve the quality of training for people with disabilities.The "Agora" project, for example, was developed in 1996 and sought to identify the factors contributing to the low percentage of young people with disabilities entering the labour market following their initial vocational training in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Greece (Leonardo daVinci, 2002).The European commission, under the umbrella of the 6th Framework promoted other significant project such as, "Opti-work (Optimizing strategies for integrating people with disabilities into work).This project began in 2006 and lasted three years, involving partners from the Netherlands, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Finland, Greece and Belgium.Researchers evaluated the implementation of national policies relating to vocational education and training that affect disabled persons across these European countries, in areas such as vocational assessment, aids and support for adults looking to come back to work(McDaid and Matosevic,2008).Furthermore, for the first time at European level, a research project has been developed using statistical analysis to compare the training and employment situations of young people with or without disabilities in European level.The European Commission launched this research in 2007 and sought to show that the training and employment situation of disable people is far worse than that of non-disabled people.People with disabilities tend to only attain the lowest levels of education, only 63% of the 16-19 age group considered restricted in their ability to work or participate in education and training, compared with 83% of non-disabled people.The employment rate of disabled people is 50%, far below the rest of the population (68%).