SAN MARINO – In view of May 1st, Attiva-Mente returns to talk about labor inclusion: “In celebrating Labor Day, it is worth remembering that the right to work also fully concerns people with disabilities, but not as a concession for a “separate” category, but with the same focus with which we approach other people. It is a question of democracy, justice, dignity and full citizenship.
Work, when it is accessible, fair, dignified and truly open to all, does not just guarantee an income. It offers autonomy, relationships, social recognition, possibility of choice. It allows you to fully participate in the community, to build your own life project and, ultimately, to emancipate yourself from dependencies imposed more by barriers than by personal conditions.
This is why the right to work and the right to independent living go hand in hand: when one is denied or emptied, the other is also weakened. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states this clearly, linking the right to employment (Article 27) to the right to live in the community with the same freedom of choice as others (Article 19). There cannot be true self-determination if a person remains excluded from the world of work, confined to closed paths or deprived of concrete opportunities.
Yet, even today, too many people with disabilities encounter obstacles that have nothing to do with merit, skills or the will to achieve: cultural prejudices, inadequate supports, lack of reasonable accommodations, low expectations, systems that protect but do not emancipate. Some symbolic cases are celebrated, but a virtuous, participatory and stable model is not built over time.
It is not just a question of laws, but also of culture and language. Continuing to reduce everything to just the “job inclusion of disabled people” means remaining anchored to a partial and outdated vision, in which some people must simply be placed within a system designed for others and designed by others. Work placement, in itself, has value because it is a useful tool in certain paths, for example in the therapeutic, rehabilitation or gradual accompaniment fields, but it does not exhaust the topic at all. The point today is broader and more ambitious: guaranteeing the right to work of people with disabilities, in conditions of equality, with adequate tools, within accessible contexts capable of enhancing skills and talents. It’s not people who have to adapt to a wrong system: it’s the system that must finally change.
At an international level this message is increasingly clear. The link between inclusive work and Independent Living is strengthened, recognizing that access to the open labor market, personalized supports and reasonable accommodations are concrete tools of freedom and participation.
Unfortunately, while modern and innovative models are discussed elsewhere, in some contexts the work of people with disabilities continues to be treated as a secondary and deferrable issue. In San Marino, sterile waiting reigns supreme regarding work inclusion and independent living: our country is suffering from delays that are difficult to justify, and which politicians seem to have stopped even being embarrassed about.
We need real active policies, competent services, collective responsibility, collaboration with businesses, training, personalized support and a finally modern vision of the topic. Above all, we need tools that allow everyone to build their own Life Project, within a community that does not exclude work from that horizon.
On the day dedicated to workers we ask for less rhetoric and more real opportunities, fewer closed doors, more tools and more future. Because work, if it is truly a right, must be for everyone. And because without work inclusion there is no full citizenship”, concludes Attiva-Mente.
