Wilfried Raith was an outstanding personality from Salzburg
He – Willi – was a pioneer of the Salzburg self-determined life movement and promoted many things as the city of Salzburg’s representative for the disabled 30 years ago.
As the Disability Officer of the City of Salzburg Wilfried Raith fought for the interests of people with disabilities between 1990 and 1995 and made important progress.
He built up the position of the city of Salzburg’s Disability Officer with a lot of effort and partly against political resistance. As a representative for people with disabilities, he wasn’t afraid to get into disputes with the responsible city councillor Veronica Garber to be publicly discussed by the SPÖ.
“Serves as an office” – as the press reported of his protest in October 1991, for example – “only a meeting room divided off by means of mobile partitions, one has one’s own personal computer – albeit only recently approved without a printer.”
Accessibility has always been an important concern for the Disability Officer; he could also get emotional:
We even have to struggle to go to the toilet.
He emphasized that people with disabilities have the right to be able to go to the toilet easily. Willi demanded that wider doors and corresponding toilets in public buildings should be required by law. He was able to get the city of Salzburg to commission a study on accessibility in December 1992.
As measures were taken at the Presentation of the study in July 1994, among other things, the application of ÖNORM B 1600 “Barrier-free construction” for all publicly and publicly funded new construction and renovation measures as well as the establishment of a center for independent living in the city of Salzburg. (At that time, Vienna already had a center for independent living with BIZEPS.)
As the Disability Officer of the City of Salzburg, he pointed out that discrimination against disabled people often drives them into a state of resignation. In July 1995, his decision to become the city of Salzburg’s representative for the disabled caused a stir due to a lack of support cancel. The position then remained vacant for a longer period of time; against his able-bodied successor protest.
Further stations: HOSI Salzburg, MOHI Salzburg and many more.
He criticized sharply, who was a wheelchair user himself and was gay, publicly presented the HOSI Salzburg in 2010 due to a lack of accessibility. He stressed that it is normally unacceptable to speak of anti-discrimination in connection with the HOSI, especially since the new space choice continued to allow for the exclusion of wheelchair users and thus became deliberate discrimination, despite the fact that the problem had been known for many years.
Willi also worked for the Mobile Help Service (MOHI) Salzburg, one of the first organizations to offer personal assistance services in Austria. (Years later, the MOHI was funded by Volkshilfe accepted.) In 1994 we visited Denmark togetherwhere a good system of personal assistance already existed, which was seen as a model for Austria.
He not only championed the interests of people with disabilities, but was also involved in other areas for human rights. As President of the Salzburg Aids-Hilfe, for example, he successfully fought to keep the counseling center.
In the last few years before retiring, he headed the “Specialist Unit for Help for the Disabled” of the Social Work GmbH, an institution that dealt with the eviction prevention affected in the city of Salzburg.
From 2017 to 2022 he was Member of the Salzburg Monitoring Committee to monitor the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and thus contributed his many years of experience. (Please refer also)
For many years, Willi was an influential personality in the field of disability rights, not only in Salzburg but also beyond. I’ve known and appreciated Willi for around 35 years, but unfortunately I’ve only had occasional contact with him in recent years.
He will be in Salzburg on June 5, 2022 deceased. On his pie stands:
If you think of me, don’t be sad, but have the courage to talk about me and to laugh. Leave me a place between you like I had in life.