Le Eli-Che

I started my internship with the University of Parma disability office (called Le Eli-Chi) this week. The language barrier is, of course, difficult, but I’m excited to learn more about the Italian (and European) approach to disability. I didn’t really know what to expect going into it – a big university, I figured, would probably have more resources for disabled students than what I’m used to at my small liberal arts school back home, but considering how rarely students have one-on-one time with their professors here, I wasn’t sure how accommodating they or the system would be. I’m still not sure – I’ve only been to the office once so far – but there were certainly some differences that became apparent right away.

To begin with, disabled people in Europe are given a rating, a percentage that they are considered disabled. Rating disability on a scale strikes me as problematic, and certainly counter to the social, disabled by society, model, but I need to find out more about how the certification process works before I can delve into a deeper analysis.

I did learn, though, that if you are certified 66% or more disabled, university tuition is free (it’s worth noting that tuition here is substantially less than in the States – I was told about 1,000 euros – but that’s still a lot of money). I was unsure how I felt about this at first, and was worried this policy was implemented out of pity, but the fee exemption is explained in one of the pamphlets the director gave me: “This is not a privilege, but a means of reducing the disadvantages of having a disability.” Translation can muddle the exact implications, but I think it’s referring to systemic disadvantages, because the definition for handicap is as follows: “The term handicap, for who knows what cultural reason, has for many years had a negative connotation. It has been used synonymously with the term disability. Today the word handicap has a different connotation: a disadvantage a person with a physical or motor disability faces because his/her environment has been constructed for those without such difficulties.” It’s not exactly how I’d word it (although, again, this is from a translated version), but these are the ideas of the medical versus social model of disability.

Emilia, the director of Le Eli-Chi, is fantastic. She’s older, and Le Eli-Chi seems to be her life’s work. I’m still a little unclear about what I’ll be doing at this internship, but I’m going to be working with disabled Italian students, which should be fun. I met an Italian girl who was putting together a daily planner that all the disabled students receive, and from what I gathered the disability office runs sports programs for disabled students, so maybe I’ll be involved in those projects. Among the materials Emilia gave me on my first day was an Italian copy of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Convenzione sui Diritti delle Persone con Disabilità), and I was reminded that it was actually ratified by Italy (and most of the rest of the world). I’m far from ready to make grand pronouncements about Italian attitudes towards disability, but in a country with ridiculously corrupt politics, at least they ratified the CRPD.