being disabled in europe - part 2 (en)

8/7/2019 Being disabled in Europe - part 2 (en)

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This project has been funded with support

from the European Commission.

This publication reects the views only ofthe author, and the Commission cannot be

held responsible for any use which may bemade of the information contained therein.

Being disabled in Europe -

International exchange for young persons with disabilities


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Background

The care and welfare department in the municipa-

lity of Ale has for many years sporadically exchan-ged ideas and experiences with organizations in the

Emilia-Romagna region in Italy. The rst contacts

were arranged by the twin city of Ale, Bertinoro,when we in the municipality of Ale wanted to learnmore about how social cooperatives work in Italy.The Emilia-Romagna region is well known as oneof the most cooperative regions in the world.The mayor of Bertinoro arranged contact with thesocial work cooperative CCILS in Cesenatico.Some ofcers and politicians from Ale went for astudy visit to Bertinoro and Cesenatico in 1998 andestablished the rst personal contacts. Since then,we have had sporadic contacts and exchange ofexperiences and mutual visits of representatives ofthe partner organizations.

When representatives from the Italian munici-palities Cesenatico and Bellaria Igea Marina and

the foundation La Nuova Famiglia visited AleKommun 2006, we agreed on trying to carry outa youth exchange for people with disabilities. Af-ter our application for EU fundings was approved

from the national agencies in Italy and Sweden westarted our rst exchange in April 2008. Everybodyagreed that this meeting in Italy was a completesuccess and that we should continue our coopera-

tion. So we began to plan a second encounter, thistime in Sweden.

La Nuova Famiglia in Cesenatico, Italy

The partner groups

La Nuova Famiglia

The sending group in the project was the founda-

tion La Nuova Famiglia The new family inthe town of Cesenatico. Cesenatico is situated on

the Adriatic coast between Ravenna and Riminiand not far from San Marino.The foundation La Nuova Famiglia (The NewFamily) O.N.L.U.S. was founded in the year 1997on the initiative of 21 families who had joinedtogether because they had disabled children.The primary scope of The New Family is to giveshelter and protection to the disabled persons

when their parents because of age or social disad-


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vantages cannot take care of them any longer.This mission is being carried out by way of theconstruction of a residential centre in the cityof Cesenatico. This shared residential centre,

dedicated to the memory of the founding asso-ciate Righi Riccardo, will be accommodating35 people with disabilities. In autumn 2008 thecentre has been completed to 50%.

When the residential centre is completely nis-hed, it will be integrated with two other fun-

damental services in the same area: the centreof occupational therapy and recreation MarkoPantani and the gym Donatello. The founda-tion is closely co-operating with the municipali-ties of Cesenatico and Bellaria Igea Marina.

Care of the disabled in the municipality of

Ale

The hosting group in the project, the Care of

the Disabled Section in Ale is part of the Careand Welfare Department. Ale has about 27 000inhabitants and is situated just north of Gothen-

burg in the Gta lv river valley, and close tothe West coast.

The section Care of the disabled responds to

people with functional impairments of all ages.

We provide information and support to peoplewith physical and/or intellectual impairments.The section Care of the disabled employs about200 personnel in total and is divided in about 15different workplaces. The main areas of activi-ties are housing and daily activities for peoplewith functional impairments. We have variouskinds of housings. Some of them are supervisedshared residential accommodation for persons

with disabilities (50 apartments), but we alsohave residential accommodation for youngadults who only need little supervision. For dailyactivities we have seven workshops with a widerange of different activities and work.

Residents at Kontakten in Ale kommun

Workshop industrigruppen

Our objectives

We wanted to give young people, who becauseof their disabilities dont have the same oppor-tunities as others, access to the Youth in ActionProgramme. The young people wanted to meetyouth from other countries and learn about eachothers ways of living and each others culturalbackground. As a theme of mutual interest, theyoung people planned to discuss the conditionsof being disabled in Sweden and Italy.Another objective of the project was to develop

the participants sense of the European citizen-ship, make them understand that they are parti-cipating in the present and future Europe.

Preparation Phase

During the summer and spring 2008 both groupsgot prepared for the exchange. Both groups had

regular planning meetings with all participants,

youth and leaders. In Ale we continued a thema-tic workshop about Italy. The work method we


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mainly used was the so-called clarifying peda-gogy. In the group we discussed every thing weknew about Italy, how it is to travel, and how itwill be to meet people who speak different langu-ages. We discussed all the questions the parti-

cipants came up with and we also talked aboutexpectations. Often we had to call our partnergroup in Italy to get answers to some of our ques-tions. At each of our planning meetings we alsohad a little Italian language course and learned

some greeting and courtesy phrases and all thewords the participants thought were important to

know. The preparation phase in the Italian groupwas similar. They also approached Sweden in athematic workshop. They discussed the contentsof the exchange, activities and important ques-tions. In the Italian group they had a short Eng-lish language course and learned to say hello and

some courtesy phrases.The responsible people for the project in the re-

spective groups, Andrea and Joachim, had regularcontact. We also discussed an Advance PlanningVisit and wrote an agenda for the APV.Other practical preparations for the Italian groupwere of course to book ights as early as possiblein order to get the best prices.

Advanced Planning visit

From the 29th until the 31st of August we welco-med two young people from La Nuova Famig-lia in Gothenburg for an advanced planningvisit.

We had many things to plan and had also littleproblems because the hostel where we wan-

ted our guests to stay during the exchange wasalready booked up. So we had to nd a new datefor the exchange and that meant lots of phone

calls and changes in our agenda for the exchange.

At last we succeeded and could turn to our re-maining planning.

Among other things we discussed the partici-pants objectives and expectations, the partici-pants, the leaders, group composition concerning

age and gender balance, work methods, possiblecommunication problems and cultural habits. We

also discussed concrete questions like accessibili-ty of all the premises involved during the exchan-

ge, possible special needs, local transports, meals,

spare time activities and nancial agreements.We also inspected the place where the group

should live during the rst three days and lear-ned which kind of activities it offered for theyoungsters.During the planning visit we also discussed theproject documentation who is responsible forwhat? How are we doing it? What do we want to

evaluate? We also discussed translating and inter-pretation needs, and how we want to disseminate

the results and the EU funding.

In the end we discovered that it had been im-portant to have face-to-face communication, evenif it is laborious and expensive to travel. It isnot possible to plan everything with phone callsand mails and for the whole exchange project it

is very important that the people who are re-

sponsible have a contact with each other.


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The Encounter

1st Day: Wednesday, 8th of October

Finally the day was there: After the advancedplanning meeting in the end of August, severaldate shifts and new planning we welcomed our

Italian friends in Sweden. With busses we metthem at the airport and brought them to their rstaccommodation: Uspastorp is a former farm,which is situated in the countryside and wasremodelled to a meeting and activity centre afew years ago. But the rural charm remains. Theguests have lunch and dinner in the former cowstable where you still nd the cows nameplates.Here the Italian and Swedish youngsters met forthe rst time since spring and had dinner together.The shyness, which had ruled their rst encounterin Cesenatico was gone: The youngsters recog-nized each other immediately and were happyabout their reunion.

For the Italian guests it had been an exciting day:Most of them were abroad for the rst time, itwas new for them to listen to a foreign language

and they noticed that it was not so easy to com-municate. Already on the way to the hotel therewere lots of things to discover, for example aquite different landscape: You have so manytrees here, observed Francesca.

On the road to Uspastorp


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2nd Day: Thursday, 9th of October

On Thursday we visited several places in AleKommun, where the Swedish youngsters live andwork. The Italian guys gained an insight into theeveryday life of their hosts.Visual experiences were linked with reectingquestions, in order to make it easier for theyoungsters to work with these new impressionsand compare them with the experiences theymade in Italy: What is different in Sweden?

Why? What are similarities?

Media workshop

For the visit at the activity centres we split the biggroup into 4 groups and our small group visitedthe media workshop rst. There we saw a lm,which the youngsters who work there had produ-ced and which presented the different workplaces

for people with disabilities in Ale kommun.In the next room stood lots of big boxes and the

people there glued and packed busily. They wereworking for Volvo; the car company, situated inGothenburg. This disposed Joachim to speculate:I wonder if all parts of a car are passing through

here in one year?

Mngsysslarna (Jacks of all trades)

Our second station was the workshop Mng-sysslarna. The people with disabilities who workhere carry out jobs like lawn mowing, carpentryor garbage collecting for the municipality. But,

Welcome paper in Italian

according to their name, they offer many differentservices and products. In their workshop theymanufacture among others bootjacks and butterknives.

Ulf, Jan-Olof and Ivan at Mngsysslarna

At the day centre Ntverket (the network) theyoungster were very interested in the differentrest rooms and tried out how it feels to relax to

the sounds of twittering birds, light installations,

or in cosy beds.

Furthermore we learned that the Swedishyoungsters do not only work for Volvo, they arealso engaged in many different matters: We saw akitchen, where they bake bread and cakes; potterand handicrafts were exposed in the large handi-

craft room.

Also for the leaders it was interesting to get toknow the different workshops and to see how theSwedes assist young people with disabilities.

Eloise at Ntverket


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In addition the Italians became acquainted with a

typical Swedish habit: Fika (Teatime). Whereverwe arrived were the tables already set with kanel-bullar, gingerbread, coffee and juice. Nobody hadto go hungry

Thursday was likely the most exhausting day forthe group. But nevertheless some of the Italiansstill had enough energy to try another Swedishtradition: Sauna and Badtunna (hot tub). Andalthough some doubted if it wasnt much too coldto sit outside in a wooden tub lled with warmwater they were enthusiastic in the end.

3rd Day: Friday, 10th of October

On Friday we already had guests for breakfast.Thomas from the anti-drug project VAKNAinformed us about their work and distributed T-Shirts.Afterwards we started out for a trip into the Swe-dish past, to the Vikingage Farmstead Viking-gard in lvngen.

At the entrance to the large area our guide wel-comed us and gave us a short historical introduc-

tion. We learned how the Vikings had lived andthat people found leftovers of their houses andships in the Vikingage farmstead a few years ago.Here they also rebuilt houses from the Vikingperiod, which we inspected.

Pentathlon at the Vikingage farmstead

Real Viking food!


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So the youngsters learned quite a lot about theSwedish cultural heritage. Now it was obviousfor them that, on the one hand, lots of things in

Europe are the same and that it is not difcultto cross the borders, but that on the other hand

Italy and Sweden have a quite different past. Theyoungsters could also capture this visually, be-cause the Viking houses were unlike the ruins theRomans left over in Italy.But not before the pentathlon with axe casting

and bale of straw batting started, we felt like realVikings! Indeed we didnt turn it into a compe-tition. Everybody should have the possibility to

give it a try without pressure.

Even the press was interested in the exchange. Ajournalist from Ale kuriren came around andtook pictures of the pentathlon.

After this activity we all were grateful for theViking meal we were offered. For some thecombination vension with vegetables and honeybread was quite unusual, but in the end every-body liked it. How can it be different, if the foodis served in proper style, with open re, potteryand wooden spoons?

For the Italian guys this insight into the Vikingperiod was something totally new and fascina-

ting. Even because historical knowledge waslinked with activity, visual impressions and culi-nary experiences all the young people will keep

this excursion in mind.

Afterwards the moving to Kunglv was the onlything left on our agenda for this day. As anothergroup had registered in Uspastorp previous tous, our guests spend the last three nights in the

Hotel Fars Hatt in Kunglv. This municipalityis situated between Ale and Gothenburg. Thecity centre is one of the oldest in Sweden and theItalians liked it very much.


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4th Day: Saturday, 11th of October

On Saturday we assembled in front of the entran-ce to Liseberg, Gothenburgs famous leisurepark. We were glad that Liseberg invited thewhole group. With our Ride pass we could rideroller coaster, carrousel or haunted house as manytimes as we liked to.

As we split the large group into several smaller,everybody had the possibility to choose if hewanted to take a cosy boat trip, risk a ride withthe roller coaster or visit the fairytale castle.For most of the youngsters it was no problem touse the fun rides, but for wheelchair users most

of them were not accessible. An exception wasthe Liseberg tower. Here they had a special en-trance for Emelie, who uses a wheelchair. So shewas present when the cabin slowly escalated andenjoyed the panoramic view over Gothenburg.The youngsters had already spent the fourth daytogether und familiarized themselves with eachother. The activities at the Vikingage farmsteadhad strengthened the feeling of togetherness and

also the trip to Liseberg and collective positiveexperiences contributed to this sentiment.

They also mastered the language barriers by

talking with hands and feet or without words.Some also trained their English and used theItalian words they had learned.Having returned home from Gothenburg we haddinner together. At dinner we welcomed guestsquite often, amongst others the mayor of Ale andthe chairman of the care and welfare board.

But most important was that we had enough time

to talk about the things we had experienced inthe daytime. The youngsters talked about things

they had liked and what could have been better.We discussed what it is like to be in a foreigncountry and what it means to live in Europe.

5th Day: Sunday, 12th of October

On our penultimate day no excursion was plan-

ned. The most important aim for today was togive the youngsters the chance to spend timetogether and become more familiar with each

other while they were dancing, singing and doinghandicrafts.

The activities, which took place at the dayactivity centre Ntverket were organised by theSwedish youngsters parents. They had invitedStig, who leads dancing and theatre workshops.He played and danced with the youngsters and

especially when the Sing Star games began,everybody was present.For the Swedish youngsters Stig was already anold acquaintance. They love him, said Lena,who is working with the Swedish youngsters.


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At last Frida and Jrgen provided a really musi-cal atmosphere. The Italian guys already knewJrgen, because he had played some Italian songsfor them in his at and as Frida started to singeverybody swept off their feet.

After so much music and motion it was timefor the Swedish smorgasbord. Everything theSwedes use to eat on feast days was dished up:Meatballs, prawns, Janssons temptation (a potatocasserole), beetroot and pickled herring.In theevening we had our farewell dinner. One more

time we talked about all the things we had expe-rienced.

But as it was our last dinner together the at-

mosphere was also a little ceremonial. Someof the leaders addressed the audience and also

Simone spoke to the group and summarized thetrip in short but to the point: Bene!

Frida and Jrgen

6th Day: Monday, 13th of October

In the morning we had our last meeting and began

to evaluate the exchange. Furthermore we discus-sed how we should continue our work.But soon it was time to drive to the airport andsay Arrivederci.And as the youngsters eventually enplaned, theyhad gained more than green rabbit ears from Li-seberg, drinking-horns from the Vikingage farms-tead and memories of funny excursions; theyhave gained self-condence, are more open-min-ded about other cultures and people and learned

what it means to be a European citizen.

The Swedish smorgasbord


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Ale kommun, 449 80 AlaforsContact: Joachim Wever, +46 303 330 764

e-mail: [email protected]

being disabled in europe - part 2 (en)

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