Neurodivergence: Neurodivergent people get marginalized for how they think, feel, learn, speak, socialize... the list goes on. The neurotypical workforce frequently sees us as complementary tools, side notes, and their accommodations tend to be underwhelming. To them, diversity is a way to get tax breaks or have less embarrassingly bland company photos.
Villej exists to right this wrong. The time is ripe for us to take full advantage of digital networks and online tools to build interconnectivity in one of the most marginalized groups of people. The Internet has made it possible for many of us to make friends and relate to others.
Just like everybody else at Villej, our developers (hi!) didn't learn about accessibility to round out a resume—we learned firsthand about what it feels like to be shamed for having needs. We have heard our friends and loved ones explain their own frustrations with being afterthoughts, or even completely forgotten in the design of systems that try hard to serve abled neurotypicals.
We will be not just receptive but excited about opportunities to make our platform more accessible, designed with neurodivergent individuals in mind. Because our understanding of cognitive differences is based in firsthand experience plus research, we don't need to read a list of buzzwords to be an accessible resource for ND people trying to get by.
Broadly speaking, we won't waste your time or your executive function.
Villej isn't your boss! Villej is a platform for networking our talents to propel us into a Cambrian age of neurodivergent business and creativity. Do what you want, when you want!
Intrinsic motivation is more powerful and rewarding than the coercive pressures of the job market. We know that you're already motivated, and that that was never the difficulty. What you need, and what our whole business is about, is building up a support network for each other. As long as what you do isn't hurting anybody, it's our goal for you to be able to do it with us and get a dignified profit for doing so.
Mental health is not a mountain to climb, but a living, conscious, evolving part of ourselves. We understand that trauma is never completely gone, and that the human experience can't be strictly confined to a 9 to 5. Bodies have cycles. Symptoms ebb and flow. Life events force us to change our lifestyles.
Having to step back from work for a while should be easy. A system where it isn't easy is brittle and inhumane. We seek to build an infrastructure for the Villej community that alleviates all that pressure on individuals.
We will always try to be clear and open ourselves to feedback about how we can improve. If we are missing something, if we aren't accessible in the way you need, let us know! We value personal growth above pride.
Oh, have you heard this before from neurotypicals and been disappointed when they call your feedback rude or unwarranted? Yeah, that irks us too. When a culture is fundamentally built around neurodivergence, the promise to keep an open door to feedback actually means something.
Everybody benefits from a clear, direct, and unambiguous line of communication. Autistic honesty is a valuable strength and it's here to stay, informing decisions from small to large.
The people who know how to empower a community best are the members of that community themselves. We aren't some vulture capitalists swooping for a financial bubble. Villej is a project for sustainably building resilience among those in the neurodivergent community who would benefit from doing business in a self-organized network without power imbalances,
Our commitment to this is immediately apparent in our choice of business entity: a workers cooperative. We are incorporating under Article 56 in Colorado, and our charter outlines that each member of the cooperative gets one share and one vote. Membership will probably grow slowly, but that greatly depends on how much help we get with the organizational and business development.
From the get go, our platform will allow any ND people to submit their work as a creator, maker, merchant, and receive a meaningful portion of each sale they're involved in. As we onboard people to perform crucial business development, we'll be able to fully onboard more people in more parts of the supply chain. We hope to give everybody involved with Villej the chance to be in the core cooperative. Growing sustainably takes patience.
The bedrock of Villej is a drive to build a community of people who mutually support each other in each of our personal quests for happiness, meaning, and success—however each of us defines those things.
By default, people are pressured to fight for jobs and money in this economy in a way that makes no sense. Competition serves the exploiting class. People see making money as a dog-eat-dog competition to take resources from other needy people (we tell a cozier story to our children). Here, we use a collaborative approach and recognize the inherent worth of every person in the community.
As we grow, we will define and expand the benefits we can offer to people to ensure that as many people as possible in the neurodivergent community bring home a living wage. Our work culture already has an easygoing approach to jumping in and out of work, knowing that passion and good organization are the main ingredients.
Villej contributors are invited to share our skills and make training more accessible, by way of personal mentorship, guide-making, and converting those guides for different learning styles.
Our focus on skill building creates redundancy that allows the pool of people who can do given jobs to grow over time. That relieves individuals of covering individual jobs in the marketplace when they need to step back. Work as much or as little as you want.
The networking and shared infrastructure of Villej allow us to coordinate coverage for different parts of the supply chain, and alert us to which roles need more recruitment.
The cofounders of Villej are women and enbies who recognize that intersectional difficulties with being part of more than one marginalized demographic. Each intersection has its own stereotypes and hardships to deal with, which is one of the reasons we put such value into listening to our community.
We don't tolerate intolerance and will persistently advocate for material support and autonomy for people of all sexual, gender, racial, mental, disability, psychological, and other statuses.
As a digital platform, we can fundamentally guarantee of one of the most commonly requested accommodations: Work From Home. We strive to make user interfaces that make it easy to find the information you need.
But we don't stop at the things we've built into our original business strategy. If you reach out to us and explain a difficulty you're having with any of our tools or your workflow, we'll be with you every step of the way to find or invent solutions.
Stuffing your network with ND people makes for a louder concern for social and environmental issues than you'll see at NT-led corporations. Different motives guide our decisions. We are not just a business, but a community of people who overwhelmingly align with regenerative principles and transformative justice.
This is no less vital to our founders. We live and breathe our commitment to accessibility, liberation, and systems of care. Villej and we strive to create systems that are even more values-aligned than a marketplace, which provide even more tangible support to our community. To this end, we are allied with a few regenerative organizations working to make the world more habitable for us and for our descendants.