In 2019, Manitoba Possible decided to take a leadership role by employing more people with disabilities and created Clean Ventures (CV), a social enterprise. It’s “Good, Clean Service. For Good.” As our first owned and operated social enterprise in many years, Clean Ventures is set up as a commercial cleaning service designed to create meaningful employment at a fair wage for Manitobans with disabilities on a financially self-sustaining basis.

On April 1, 2019, eighteen new employees began working to keep 28 buildings throughout Assiniboine Park Conservancy, our first commercial client, clean and tidy. Our ongoing training and preparations allowed our CV team to perform very well and they were instrumental in the success of the park during peak times and events. Training includes fundamental work and life skills, including an employee’s responsibilities for attendance & dress, social norms, money management, how to shop and buy, how to budget, and much more.

Mohamed is a Clean Ventures employee who was born Deaf in Eritrea, a country in North Eastern Africa. In 2010, Mohamed and his family moved to Canada, he shares, “American Sign Language (ASL) was quicker to learn here because there were more people that could communicate.” 

Mohamed is now 22 and working at Clean Ventures as a custodian. When he found out about the opportunity he says, “I was super excited when I got a job. I thought to myself that I could do really well and wanted to build more skills for my future.” When asked about his experience working with other newcomers to Canada and Deaf or hard of hearing team members he says, “I feel comfortable. We work as a group so whoever the lead is, we learn from them on what needs to get done and do our best to communicate and work together.”