The 3rd Asia-Pacific CBR Congress

An Entrepreneurial Endeavor of the Sixth Industrialization by a Sheltered Workshop for People with Intellectual Disability in Japan

Dr. Masayuki Watanabe (Tokoha University), Mr. Toshihiko Nakamura, Mr. Kazuhito Mineno (Japan)

This paper presents that social welfare cooperation Fukusenkai that runs a sheltered workshop, succeeded in an entrepreneurial endeavor of six industrializations mobilizing various community resources in Hamamatsu city, Japan.

Kurumi cooperation workshop that was based on Fukusenkai initiated workshop as a place of life and common shelter for isolated and needy people with intellectual disability in 1977.

Then, a supporting group for Kurumi was organized and gives supports in various aspects to the workshop. The Fukusenkai underline the interaction with the community, providing counseling, services for people with disability related to their life and work. The Fukusenkai collaborates with farmers, enterprises, universities, local governments through the works by people with disability and holds events as harvest festival so that the community people could enjoy themselves together.

The Fukusenkai started Enshu dream project and Hamamatsu fruit museum in 2011 and created an original brand “KuRuMix” for mainly fruit juice in 2013. The KuRuMix highlights the policy that it processes and sells local agricultural products, boosting the sixth industrialization, practicing services for people with disability with community products, and contributes to society as the logo “KuRuMi ✕ Community power = ∞ (infinity)” shows.

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