Being disabled in Europe -

International exchange for young persons with disabilities

This project has been funded with support

from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of
the author, and the Commission cannot be
held responsible for any use which may be
made of the information contained therein.
 Background
The care and welfare department in the municipa-
lity of Ale has for many years sporadically exchan-
ged ideas and experiences with organizations in the
Emilia-Romagna region in Italy. The first contacts
were arranged by the twin city of Ale, Bertinoro,
when we in the municipality of Ale wanted to learn
more about how social cooperatives work in Italy.
The Emilia-Romagna region is well known as one
of the most cooperative regions in the world.
The mayor of Bertinoro arranged contact with the
social work cooperative CCILS in Cesenatico.
Some officers and politicians from Ale went for a
study visit to Bertinoro and Cesenatico in 1998 and
established the first personal contacts. Since then,
we have had sporadic contacts and exchange of
experiences and mutual visits of representatives of
the partner organizations.
When representatives from the Italian munici-
palities Cesenatico and Bellaria Igea Marina and
the foundation “La Nuova Famiglia” visited Ale
Kommun 2006, we agreed on trying to carry out
a youth exchange for people with disabilities. Af-
ter our application for EU fundings was approved
La Nuova Famiglia in Cesenatico, Italy
from the national agencies in Italy and Sweden we
started our first exchange in April 2008. Everybody
agreed that this meeting in Italy was a complete
success and that we should continue our coopera-
tion. So we began to plan a second encounter, this
time in Sweden.
The partner groups
La Nuova Famiglia
The sending group in the project was the founda-
tion ”La Nuova Famiglia” – ‘The new family’ in
the town of Cesenatico. Cesenatico is situated on
the Adriatic coast between Ravenna and Rimini
and not far from San Marino.
The foundation “La Nuova Famiglia” (The New
Family) O.N.L.U.S. was founded in the year 1997
on the initiative of 21 families who had joined
together because they had disabled children.
The primary scope of The New Family is to give
shelter and protection to the disabled persons
when their parents because of age or social disad-
vantages cannot take care of them any longer. with disabilities (50 apartments), but we also
This mission is being carried out by way of the have residential accommodation for young
construction of a residential centre in the city adults who only need little supervision. For daily
of Cesenatico. This shared residential centre, activities we have seven workshops with a wide
dedicated to the memory of the founding asso- range of different activities and work.
ciate ”Righi Riccardo”, will be accommodating
35 people with disabilities. In autumn 2008 the
centre has been completed to 50%.
When the residential centre is completely finis-
hed, it will be integrated with two other fun-
damental services in the same area: the centre
of occupational therapy and recreation ”Marko
Pantani” and the gym ”Donatello”. The founda-
tion is closely co-operating with the municipali-
ties of Cesenatico and Bellaria Igea Marina.

Care of the disabled in the municipality of

Ale
The hosting group in the project, the Care of
the Disabled Section in Ale is part of the Care
and Welfare Department. Ale has about 27 000
inhabitants and is situated just north of Gothen-
burg in the Göta Älv river valley, and close to
the West coast.
The section Care of the disabled responds to
people with functional impairments of all ages.
We provide information and support to people
with physical and/or intellectual impairments.
The section Care of the disabled employs about
200 personnel in total and is divided in about 15
different workplaces. The main areas of activi-
ties are housing and daily activities for people
with functional impairments. We have various
kinds of housings. Some of them are supervised
shared residential accommodation for persons
Workshop ”industrigruppen”
Our objectives
We wanted to give young people, who because
of their disabilities don’t have the same oppor-
tunities as others, access to the Youth in Action
Programme. The young people wanted to meet
youth from other countries and learn about each
other’s ways of living and each other’s cultural
background. As a theme of mutual interest, the
young people planned to discuss the conditions
of being disabled in Sweden and Italy.
Another objective of the project was to develop
the participants’ sense of the European citizen-
ship, make them understand that they are parti-
cipating in the present and future Europe.

Preparation Phase

During the summer and spring 2008 both groups

got prepared for the exchange. Both groups had
regular planning meetings with all participants,
Residents at ”Kontakten” in Ale kommun
youth and leaders. In Ale we continued a thema-
tic workshop about Italy. The work method we
mainly used was the so-called “clarifying peda-
gogy”. In the group we discussed every thing we
knew about Italy, how it is to travel, and how it
will be to meet people who speak different langu-
ages. We discussed all the questions the parti-
cipants came up with and we also talked about
expectations. Often we had to call our partner
group in Italy to get answers to some of our ques-
tions. At each of our planning meetings we also
had a little Italian language course and learned
some greeting and courtesy phrases and all the
words the participants thought were important to
know. The preparation phase in the Italian group
was similar. They also approached Sweden in a
thematic workshop. They discussed the contents
of the exchange, activities and important ques-
tions. In the Italian group they had a short Eng-
lish language course and learned to say hello and
some courtesy phrases.
The responsible people for the project in the re-
spective groups, Andrea and Joachim, had regular
contact. We also discussed an Advance Planning
Visit and wrote an agenda for the APV.
Other practical preparations for the Italian group
were of course to book flights as early as possible
in order to get the best prices.
ge, possible special needs, local transports, meals,
spare time activities and financial agreements.
We also inspected the place where the group
should live during the first three days and lear-
ned which kind of activities it offered for the
youngsters.
During the planning visit we also discussed the
project documentation – who is responsible for
what? How are we doing it? What do we want to
evaluate? We also discussed translating and inter-
pretation needs, and how we want to disseminate
the results and the EU funding.
In the end we discovered that it had been im-
portant to have face-to-face communication, even
if it is laborious and expensive to travel. It is
not possible to plan everything with phone calls
and mails and for the whole exchange project it
is very important that the people who are re-
sponsible have a contact with each other.

Advanced Planning visit

From the 29th until the 31st of August we welco-

med two young people from “La Nuova Famig-
lia” in Gothenburg for an advanced planning
visit.
We had many things to plan and had also little
problems because the hostel where we wan-
ted our guests to stay during the exchange was
already booked up. So we had to find a new date
for the exchange and that meant lots of phone
calls and changes in our agenda for the exchange.
At last we succeeded and could turn to our re-
maining planning.
Among other things we discussed the partici-
pants’ objectives and expectations, the partici-
pants, the leaders, group composition concerning
age and gender balance, work methods, possible
communication problems and cultural habits. We
also discussed concrete questions like accessibili-
ty of all the premises involved during the exchan-
The Encounter and they noticed that it was not so easy to com-
municate. Already on the way to the hotel there
1st Day: Wednesday, 8th of October were lots of things to discover, for example a
quite different landscape: “You have so many
Finally the day was there: After the advanced trees here”, observed Francesca.
planning meeting in the end of August, several
date shifts and new planning we welcomed our
Italian friends in Sweden. With busses we met
them at the airport and brought them to their first
accommodation: Uspastorp is a former farm,
which is situated in the countryside and was
remodelled to a meeting and activity centre a
few years ago. But the rural charm remains. The
guests have lunch and dinner in the former cow
stable where you still find the cows nameplates.
Here the Italian and Swedish youngsters met for
the first time since spring and had dinner together.
The shyness, which had ruled their first encounter
in Cesenatico was gone: The youngsters recog-
nized each other immediately and were happy
about their reunion.
For the Italian guests it had been an exciting day:
Most of them were abroad for the first time, it On the road to Uspastorp
was new for them to listen to a foreign language
 according to their name, they offer many different
services and products. In their workshop they
manufacture among others bootjacks and butter
knives.

Welcome paper in Italian

2nd Day: Thursday, 9th of October

Ulf, Jan-Olof and Ivan at Mångsysslarna
On Thursday we visited several places in Ale
Kommun, where the Swedish youngsters live and
work. The Italian guys gained an insight into the
everyday life of their hosts.
At the day centre ”Nätverket” (the network) the
Visual experiences were linked with reflecting
youngster were very interested in the different
questions, in order to make it easier for the
rest rooms and tried out how it feels to relax to
youngsters to work with these new impressions
the sounds of twittering birds, light installations,
and compare them with the experiences they
or in cosy beds.
made in Italy: What is different in Sweden?
Furthermore we learned that the Swedish
Why? What are similarities?
youngsters do not only work for Volvo, they are
also engaged in many different matters: We saw a
kitchen, where they bake bread and cakes; potter
Media workshop
and handicrafts were exposed in the large handi-
craft room.
For the visit at the activity centres we split the big
Also for the leaders it was interesting to get to
group into 4 groups and our small group visited
know the different workshops and to see how the
the media workshop first. There we saw a film,
Swedes assist young people with disabilities.
which the youngsters who work there had produ-
ced and which presented the different workplaces
for people with disabilities in Ale kommun.
In the next room stood lots of big boxes and the
people there glued and packed busily. They were
working for Volvo; the car company, situated in
Gothenburg. This disposed Joachim to speculate:
“I wonder if all parts of a car are passing through
here in one year?”

Mångsysslarna (Jacks of all trades)

Our second station was the workshop “Mång-

sysslarna”. The people with disabilities who work
here carry out jobs like lawn mowing, carpentry Eloise at Nätverket
or garbage collecting for the municipality. But,
In addition the Italians became acquainted with a
typical Swedish habit: Fika (Teatime). Wherever
we arrived were the tables already set with kanel-
bullar, gingerbread, coffee and juice. Nobody had
to go hungry…

Thursday was likely the most exhausting day for

the group. But nevertheless some of the Italians
still had enough energy to try another Swedish
tradition: Sauna and Badtunna (hot tub). And
although some doubted if it wasn’t much too cold
to sit outside in a wooden tub filled with warm
water they were enthusiastic in the end.

Pentathlon at the Vikingage farmstead

3rd Day: Friday, 10th of October

On Friday we already had guests for breakfast.

Thomas from the anti-drug project “VAKNA”
informed us about their work and distributed T-
Shirts.
Afterwards we started out for a trip into the Swe-
dish past, to the Vikingage Farmstead “Vikingå-
gard” in Älvängen.

At the entrance to the large area our guide wel-

comed us and gave us a short historical introduc-
tion. We learned how the Vikings had lived and
that people found leftovers of their houses and
ships in the Vikingage farmstead a few years ago.
Here they also rebuilt houses from the Viking
period, which we inspected.

Real Viking food!

So the youngsters learned quite a lot about the
Swedish cultural heritage. Now it was obvious
for them that, on the one hand, lots of things in
Europe are the same and that it is not difficult
to cross the borders, but that on the other hand
Italy and Sweden have a quite different past. The
youngsters could also capture this visually, be-
cause the Viking houses were unlike the ruins the
Romans left over in Italy.
But not before the pentathlon with axe casting
and bale of straw batting started, we felt like real
Vikings! Indeed we didn’t turn it into a compe-
tition. Everybody should have the possibility to
give it a try without pressure.
ting. Even because historical knowledge was
linked with activity, visual impressions and culi-
nary experiences all the young people will keep
this excursion in mind.
Afterwards the moving to Kungälv was the only
thing left on our agenda for this day. As another
group had registered in Uspastorp previous to
us, our guests spend the last three nights in the
Hotel “Fars Hatt” in Kungälv. This municipality
is situated between Ale and Gothenburg. The
city centre is one of the oldest in Sweden and the
Italians liked it very much.

Even the press was interested in the exchange. A

journalist from “Ale kuriren” came around and
took pictures of the pentathlon.

After this activity we all were grateful for the

Viking meal we were offered. For some the
combination “vension with vegetables and honey
bread” was quite unusual, but in the end every-
body liked it. How can it be different, if the food
is served in proper style, with open fire, pottery
and wooden spoons?
For the Italian guys this insight into the Viking
period was something totally new and fascina-

4th Day: Saturday, 11th of October
On Saturday we assembled in front of the entran-
ce to “Liseberg”, Gothenburg’s famous leisure
park. We were glad that Liseberg invited the
whole group. With our “Ride pass” we could ride
roller coaster, carrousel or haunted house as many
times as we liked to.
As we split the large group into several smaller,
everybody had the possibility to choose if he
wanted to take a cosy boat trip, risk a ride with
the roller coaster or visit the fairytale castle.
For most of the youngsters it was no problem to
use the fun rides, but for wheelchair users most
of them were not accessible. An exception was
the Liseberg tower. Here they had a special en-
trance for Emelie, who uses a wheelchair. So she
was present when the cabin slowly escalated and
enjoyed the panoramic view over Gothenburg.
The youngsters had already spent the fourth day
together und familiarized themselves with each
other. The activities at the Vikingage farmstead
had strengthened the feeling of togetherness and
also the trip to Liseberg and collective positive
experiences contributed to this sentiment.
They also mastered the language barriers by
talking with hands and feet or without words.
Some also trained their English and used the
Italian words they had learned.
Having returned home from Gothenburg we had
dinner together. At dinner we welcomed guests
quite often, amongst others the mayor of Ale and
the chairman of the care and welfare board.
But most important was that we had enough time
to talk about the things we had experienced in
the daytime. The youngsters talked about things
they had liked and what could have been better.
We discussed what it is like to be in a foreign
country and what it means to live in Europe.
5th Day: Sunday, 12th of October
On our penultimate day no excursion was plan-
ned. The most important aim for today was to
give the youngsters the chance to spend time
together and become more familiar with each
other while they were dancing, singing and doing
handicrafts.
The activities, which took place at the day
activity centre Nätverket were organised by the
Swedish youngsters’ parents. They had invited
Stig, who leads dancing and theatre workshops.
He played and danced with the youngsters and
especially when the “Sing Star games” began,
everybody was present.
For the Swedish youngsters Stig was already an
old acquaintance. “They love him”, said Lena,
who is working with the Swedish youngsters.
 6th Day: Monday, 13th of October

In the morning we had our last meeting and began

to evaluate the exchange. Furthermore we discus-
sed how we should continue our work.
But soon it was time to drive to the airport and
say “Arrivederci”.
And as the youngsters eventually enplaned, they
had gained more than green rabbit ears from Li-
seberg, drinking-horns from the Vikingage farms-
tead and memories of funny excursions; they
Frida and Jörgen have gained self-confidence, are more open-min-
ded about other cultures and people and learned
what it means to be a European citizen.

At last Frida and Jörgen provided a really musi-

cal atmosphere. The Italian guys already knew
Jörgen, because he had played some Italian songs
for them in his flat and as Frida started to sing
everybody swept off their feet.

After so much music and motion it was time

for the Swedish smorgasbord. Everything the
Swedes use to eat on feast days was dished up:
Meatballs, prawns, Janssons temptation (a potato
casserole), beetroot and pickled herring.In the
evening we had our farewell dinner. One more
time we talked about all the things we had expe-
rienced.
But as it was our last dinner together the at-
mosphere was also a little ceremonial. Some
of the leaders addressed the audience and also
Simone spoke to the group and summarized the
trip in short but to the point: “Bene!”

The Swedish smorgasbord

 Ale kommun, 449 80 Alafors
Contact: Joachim Wever, +46 303 330 764
e-mail: joachim.wever@ale.se
www.ale.se