Volunteers of America’s Working Order program entrepreneurs participate in Voices of our Region, a project of Disability Connection.

PITTSBURGH, PA, June 2008  –  Volunteers of America’s Working Order program is proud to announce a collaboration between its entrepreneurs and the Disability Connection project Voices of our Region.  This project, supported by the Department of Human Services Office of Community Relations and the FISA Foundation, will record the personal stories of people in Southwestern Pennsylvania with all types of disabilities and from all ages and cultures. These candid, non-scripted accounts describe the pursuit of individual goals and the removal of barriers that have for generations confronted these individuals, families and the advocates for people with disabilities. 

Disability Connection will capture and preserve the history of disabilities in this region in a documentary CD with regional distribution. The entire collection of original audio recordings and photographs will be permanently stored in the Carnegie Library system.

The mission of Working Order is to develop and support entrepreneurship for individuals with disabilities and others seeking to be self-employed.  Three Volunteers of America Working Order Transcription Businesses have been hired to complete the electronic transcription of 100 hours of interviews of the individuals.  On Friday May 30 five Working Order entrepreneurs were interviewed at the office in Sharpsburg describing their experiences and contributing their stories to this historic venture.