CtheCity is a unique Social Enterprise and offers work to deaf and blind employees who are looking for a nice (additional) job.
Plop down and let yourself be served at the Sign Language Coffee bar. Deaf baristas provide your coffee with great attention to detail.
Experience the Walk in the dark with a blind 'city' guide. They let you experience all corners of the city with your senses. Or focus your nerves with the Escaperoom in the dark. Take up the challenge and explore Amsterdam in the dark. Recognize, experience and discover Amsterdam like never before.
Athough the staff is deaf, the coffee bar must become a place where deaf people as well as people who can hear can come for a cup of coffee and conviviality.
Visitors who do not know sign language can use a screen with short, silent video films on the spot. You will learn how to order an espresso or a cappuccino in sign language. In addition to coffee, you can also eat a croissant or a brownie at the bar.
The first of its kind
In, for example, South Africa and Malaysia, the concept already exists. But as far as founder Bas de Ruiter knows, the bar in the Netherlands is the first of its kind. "There are meeting places where sign language is spoken, but only deaf people go there."
But for deaf youths, such as the eight young baristas who form the barteam, it is often much more fun to work in a place where it is not so separate. "The baristas all work part-time, in addition to their studies, for deaf young people it is more difficult to find a job where social contact is an important part, and of course they also need it."
At the beginning of this month, the coffee bar, which is located in the Cthecity building, was already quietly opened, so that the baristas could become familiar with the work and the place. That has already happened: the official opening is Thursday at noon.
