After the public evening of last May 4th, our path of accompaniment to the discussion of the Arengo Instance for Independent Life continues, which will have to be held during the current regency semester. Today we know better the professional figure of the Personal Assistant. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by the Republic of San Marino in 2008, establishes, in article 19, the right to independent life and inclusion in society, or the right to self-determination of one’s existence for face and control in first person, without any external or other decision, one’s daily life and one’s future. This right refers to all people with disabilities, needs without distinction of social condition, support, age, ability to express themselves or to self-represent their will and their choices, also through the figure of a facilitator or legal representative. The Personal Assistant, on the other hand, is the essential tool to make all this possible. Recognized and launched for some time in many countries around the world, the Personal Assistant is the first and most important aid to ensure leadership in one’s life. A resource without which rights we cannot speak of equal rights and self-determination and thanks to it it is possible to avoid many situations of isolation and segregation, aspiring to as many people with disabilities to know what they ignore or have ignored throughout their life, freedom. If we want to engage in policies aimed at the so-called “possible proximity”, we cannot pretend not to see and not understand a situation of incivility in San Marino, which sees us defaulting and behind compared to many other countries. Unlike home assistance both for training and for the self-management method, the Personal Assistant is prepared to respect the principles of independent living for people with disabilities, trained and hired directly by them to perform the agreed functions, protected by contracts dignified and fair. Overcoming the reductive concept of the so-called “caregiver”, which in the common imagination was born with the aim of limiting itself to looking after / supervising the person with disabilities, the Personal Assistant carries out tasks aimed at achieving possible independence and inclusion in the community. Independent Life, it should be reiterated, is the right to be able to choose where, how, when and by whom to get help for tasks such as personal and domestic hygiene, facilitating travel, home management and so on up to personal support wherever it is. required (at school, at work, in free time, etc.). It is evident that the type of service is not standardized, but varies on the basis of different and subjective needs. The introduction of this disability is for people with this disability which favors the highest level of activity and participation in the contest, completing the offer without precluding or replacing the existing one. But this necessarily involves a revision of the supply chain of services aimed at people with disabilities. In other words, it involves the need to optimize our membership system to enable it to respond to the demand (rights and needs) of people with disabilities, for spending by the service network and, why not, to seize the opportunity to create a new occupation. All in a more coherent and economically sustainable perspective of rights and duties. The distance between the Sammarine reality and the provisions of the Social Model initiated by the Convention in terms of Independent Living, of which Personal Assistance is the pre-eminent instrument, is evident; situations that we know of people with serious disabilities to whom the logic of assistance, protection and custody (Medicalising Model) is not allowed, as it is not sufficient, to live their life as protagonists, independently and fully included in society. A number of cultural, technical and political factors contribute mainly to achieving this goal. It is first of all necessary to urgently get out of an obsolete and unjust welfare logic, with the political will to design and experiment innovative horizons for San Marino, but which have already been successfully implemented elsewhere for some time and hours need to be invested in redirecting resources into the new indicator paradigm from the Convention. . Finally, calling into question also the trade unions, a special / atypical employment relationship must be prefigured and established as a law, also for flexibility of hours, in which the person with disabilities (employer) hires directly through specific loans for Independent Life projects his own Personal Assistant (employee), of whom he is also the main trainer. Furthermore, the Personal Assistant, with adequate professional preparation regarding the principles of independent life, therefore suitable and available, must be freely chosen by the person with disabilities who requests it. Little to do, therefore, with the important regulation of Integrated Non-Health Private Assistance (caregivers) which the Great and General Council is preparing to discuss in these days. In conclusion, all institutions, both those in the social sphere (OOSS and politics), and in the socio-health and health sector, must be fully responsible and involved in our territory but above all together with those directly concerned, in the democratic perspective of equal opportunities. and the right to equality, with the creation of effective paths and efficient independent living projects. We hope that the right to independent life for all people with disabilities will finally be recognized and taken into serious consideration also in the Ancient Land of Freedom.

cs Activate-Mind