Hi Everyone,

I think this article goes a long way to explain an experience I had back in
1974 while a college student studying in Madrid.  One night I got off the
bus near my apartment building after my last class of the day.  I was
walking along the street when a guy whose breath smelled like he had drunk
several bottles of wine or cognac thrust a coin in my hand and said
"loteria."  I returned it explaining rather indignantly that I was a
student.  I later found out that blind folks in Spain sold lottery tickets
to support themselves.  I certainly never realized what a good thing they
had going.

Diane Scalzi

-----Original Message-----
From: VICUG-L: Visually Impaired Computer Users' Group List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Senk
Sent: Friday, February 25, 2005 4:32 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: if you're going to be blind, be Spanish

I found this old article and wanted to share it with the list.
www.once.es is the group's website (in Spanish)



SPANISH BLIND GROUP THRIVES ON LARGESS OF LOTTERY

By: CIARAN GILES

Editor's Note: The following article is re-printed from the Associated
Press, May 29, 2000.

MADRID, Spain (AP) - The Spanish Civil War killed and maimed hundreds of
thousands of soldiers and civilians and left much of Spain in ruins.
Yet, for one disabled group, the war's legacy has had advantages.

No one knows how many people were blinded in the 1936-39 conflict, but eager
to rid himself of the problem, dictator Francisco Franco ordered them to
form a national organization and take care of themselves. To encourage them,
he granted the right to create a national lottery. Six decades later, with
Franco long dead and democracy fully restored, the National Organization of
Blind Spaniards has blossomed into one of Spain's most successful businesses
and one of the world's most dynamic disabled support groups.

"There's no doubt about it, if you're going to be blind, be Spanish,"
quips Miguel Callejas, a blind man who has sold lottery tickets the past
28 years for ONCE, the Spanish acronym for the organization. Lottery
drawings, staged every day except Saturday, bring in the equivalent of $2.3
billion a year.  Profits enable the organization to guarantee employment for
nearly all of Spain's 60,000 blind.

"I know of nothing even comparable to the ONCE in the entire world,"
said Edwin Vaughan, a blind sociology professor at the University of
Missouri who has studied how countries view and treat blind people. "In
nearly every country, the United States included, blindness is associated
with begging and the blind are virtually totally dependent on welfare
assistance with employment opportunities severely limited," he said. "In
Spain, it's the opposite."

In the United States, unemployment among the blind rarely falls below 70
percent, while in Spain, it's hardly ever above 5 percent, Vaughan said.
The European Blind Union says its latest figures, for 1995, showed that out
of 41,000 blind adults available for work in Germany, only 9,000 had a job.
In France, only 7,000 of the 18,000 working age blind were employed. ONCE
receives no government subsidy and its board is independent and elected
every four years by its members, all blind or sight-impaired. The growth of
the lottery allowed ONCE to gradually build up a business empire with stakes
in everything from hotels to construction. In the 1980s, it branched into
the media, founding a private national TV channel, a national daily
newspaper and a popular radio chain. But sensing expansion was tarnishing
its more-important image as a caring group for the disabled, ONCE sold off
its principal media holdings -- at a profit.
Nowadays, ONCE is as Spanish as bullfighting, sidewalk cafes and soccer.
Vendors wearing dark glasses and carrying canes pace the streets in nearly
every village, barking out, "Lucky numbers for today!" In the cities, single
vendors sit in enclosed ONCE kiosks, selling tickets through glass windows.

The lottery has thrived not only because Spaniards love to gamble, but
because of clever marketing and slick advertising. Midweek coupons sell for
200 pesetas($1.25), offering a chance at 500 daily top prizes of 5 million
pesetas ($33,000) each and thousands of smaller winnings. The No. 1 prize
for the Sunday lottery pays $58,000 a year for 25 years.

Totally independent since 1982, ONCE plows its profits into serving its
members. It runs Europe's biggest guide dog school, a factory whose products
include canes, children's Braille sets and portable speech-activated
computers and social rehabilitation centers. It also works with other
companies, such as Microsoft, to develop systems and technical innovations
for the blind. On a more public level, ONCE runs a touch-and-feel art Museum
for the Blind. In 1998, it organized an international competition in Madrid
for blind athletes. In recent years, ONCE has supported projects for the
blind abroad, including in several Latin American nations, notably Chile and
Argentina.

ONCE estimates there are 150 million blind people in the world, but many
poor countries do not keep records on who and where they are. "The ONCE's
idea is that the blind should care for the blind. In most countries, nobody
looks after them at all," said Rafael Mondaca, the organization's director
of international relations. ONCE recognizes that even though it is private,
it has a privileged position and the government could withdraw its lottery
rights or grant licenses to other causes. "Fortunately, it wouldn't make
business sense for the Spanish government to do so because it knows that if
ONCE crumbled it would then be responsible for looking after the blind
itself," said Pedro Zurrita, who heads the World Blind Organization, which
is based in Madrid.

"For the Civil War authorities, it was a load off their mind," he said.
"Back then no one thought the lottery was ever going to be so successful.
It's unlikely that any government would do it today."


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[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
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