Volunteering and handicap

2003 has been the European Year of People with Disabilities, launched by the Council of the European Union. It aimed to highlight barriers and discrimination faced by disabled people and to improve the lives of those of us who have a disability.

There are over 37 million people with disabilities in the European Union. This represents 10% of the total population (European Commission, 2003). On this occasion, a report was dedicated to " Europeans faced to handicaps ", on the basis of the Eurobarometer 54.2 (European Commission, 2001). Nearly six out of ten Europeans are directly or indirectly faced to handicap (their family, friends or neighbours): long term illness, handicap or disability. 57% of the people interviewed confess a lack of information on handicap. They are well informed on only four types of handicap: cancer, asthma, diabetes and arthritis.

The notion of handicap is hard to define. An International Classification on handicaps was adopted in 1993 (CIH-1) under the impulse of the World Health Organisation (WHO). It has considered three levels of handicap: deficiencies; incapacities; disabilities. This presentation has been criticised as being too much medical and negative. A new classification has been proposed in 2001, by the WHO with a more sociological definition of handicap linking health of the people and their environment. The new classification has made a clear distinction on four types of handicap depending on the ways it affected organic functions, anatomic structures, social activities and participation or environmental factors.

The way people with disabilities are taken in charge in institutions has been a main issue in many European countries. The medical approach is not enough, the social and educative approaches are most necessary to answer the needs of people with disability in institutions. That is the reason why some innovative institutions have proposed to mix the profiles of people working with disabilities, gathering families, volunteers and professionals. Is the experience and approach proposed in some countries (such as the House of the XXIth Century in France) relevant in other countries and other institutions ? Sharing the views and experiences of families, volunteers and professionals working with the disabled would be of high relevance for institution working with people with disabilities in Europe.

For further information

www.vision21.pl: european project Grundtvig about volunteering in the social services.

Halba B., Bénévolat et handicap, Paris, Elsevier-Masson, 2008

 

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