'People with intellectual disabilities have so much to offer to society' - owner of Brownies & Downies
Wendy Vermeulen is the proud owner of Brownies & Downies in Cape Town. The restaurant gives intellectually disabled people the opportunity to show their skills.
"My passion is to uplift people, and right now those people are our special-needs trainees at Brownies & Downies! I want the world to see them how I see them"
These are the words of the proud owner of Brownies & Downies, Wendy Vermeulen.
"My biggest dream is to impact and change as many lives as I can with the time I have," she told Rian.
Vermeulen wants to change society’s stigmas on people with disabilities and make it easier for interaction between them. She also wants to give people with intellectual disabilities easier access to the right to work and earn a living.
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Brownies & Downies is a place where ability and disability meet! Serving fresh and contemporary home-style food, truth coffee, and the best brownies in Cape Town.
Vermeulen did her social work internship in Cape Town. She
saw a desperate need for facilities, training and employment after university for
people who have an intellectual disability in South Africa. More urgent was her
realisation that the public’s stigmas surrounding intellectual disabilities
were misplaced.
In 2016, Expresso pop-in to the famous restaurant. Watch the interview below.