“We don’t have [an] ecosystem for social enterprises, we don’t have legislation, we don’t have funding, we don’t have anything,” asserts Vidas Visockis, president of the National Association for the Coordinators of Youth Affairs. And he is right.

In Lithuania, only a small fraction of the social enterprises, including Social Taxi, that need help from the government are provided with such support. Unfortunately, that minimal support is usually only in the form of money. Worse, during last month’s first Social Enterprise Summit for Lithuania, many of the entrepreneurs said that before the idea of going social became trendy, the only thing politicians in Lithuania offered was the closed doors to their office.

But after that event, the outlook looks a bit more positive. As Survila puts it, [We] “simply understood that we live once, and we should do that what we want to do.” With this belief, he has already helped hundreds of disabled people live bustling lives.

“It is a huge achievement, because in Lithuania it is common [to think] that everything is set for disabled people.” And such reasoning is what truly makes for a disabled existence.

Information source: www.studentreporter.org