For some of us, it’s a challenge to find a workplace where you can fit in, and be accepted for who you are and what you can do. Altus Enterprises is a business that employs over 180 people with disabilities working in a supportive work place. But this is no charity. Here you’ll find people working real jobs, filling contracts from some of the biggest companies in the country.
Altus offers their staff the opportunity to be self-sustaining; a life achievement that would be otherwise unattainable for many here. Most importantly, when you walk through the doors, there’s a hum of happy activity, and a palpable sense of satisfaction: it’s a job well done.
Staff sort the tangled piles of headphones, delivered by the bag-load from nearby Auckland International Airport. They plug in each set to ensure good working order, and hang them on racks. In the next room, lines of people are busily inserting fresh earpieces, coiling cables and re-bagging; recycling 17,000 headsets per day, ready to accompany Air New Zealand customers on their next journey. This mammoth task is just one of many that go on in these walls, including packaging recycled fabrics for use on worksites, putting together products for Black Box cartons, manufacturing plastic pipe, and more.
