CONFERENCE — May 30, 9 am — 5 pm
File attachments:
Interviews and Profiles
For newer videos please visit ratzka.se where Adolf Ratzka has a collection of newer material
2009 Interview with Adolf Ratzka during ENIL's Strasbourg Freedom Drive by Dr. Paul Durke
Adolf Ratzka reflects on the slow progress disabled people have been making during the last decades, the strong powers behind institutionalization, and describes how the Swedish Independent Living Movement introduced direct payments for personal assistance.
In his keynote address Adolf Ratzka delineates the origins of STIL, the Stockholm Cooperative for Independent Living owned and mainly run by Personal Assistance user themselves providing services to its members. Personal Assistance is here depicted as an example of demand-driven as opposed to supply-driven services which, according to the text's analysis, would explain the differences between these services in terms of quality and cost efficiency.
SYRIZA, the government party in Greece, organized a conference on politics and disability together with the Greek branch of the Independent Living movement in Athens, March 13, 2015. Adolf Ratzka was invited to participate by Skype and talk about the role that Independent Living, especially Personal Assistance, can play in a country in economic crises: benefiting persons with extensive disabilities who today often depend on their families for physical survival and benefiting the national economy by creating employment opportunities and stimulating domestic demand.
What is the relationship of global health to global disability? Medicalizing the issue of disability may occlude the social and political aspects of disability. While the history of political thought and social contract theories are embarrassing in their neglect and treatment of disability, the history of the U.S. Civil Rights struggle offers some interesting parallels.
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PDF, 856 KB.
An HTML version is also at: http://cirrie-sphhp.webapps.buffalo.edu/bibliography/buddhism/index.php.
[This annotated bibliography of 220 items suggests the range and major themes of how Buddhism and people influenced by Buddhism have responded to disability in Asia through two millennia, with cultural background. Titles of the materials may be skimmed through in an hour, or the titles and annotations read in a day. The works listed might take half a year to find and read.]
M. Miles (compiler and annotator)
West Midlands, UK. November 2013
File attachments:
Adolf Ratzka, Independent Living Institute and Founding Chairperson of ENIL
ENIL Strasbourg Freedom Drive Plenary Presentation September 6 2013
Under sin snart tjugoåriga historia har assistansreformen lyckats bli såväl älskad som verktyg för befrielse och avskydd som ett verktyg för brottslig verksamhet.
-Men i sin helhet är assistansreformen en succé, säger Adolf Ratzka som visade vägen med ett pilotprojekt på nittonhundraåttiotalet som så småningom ledde fram till reformen.
-Det som inte är bra med den är småsaker i sammanhanget.
- The Independent Living movement paved the way: Origins of personal assistance in Sweden (page in english)
Kapitel 2 ur boken: Perspektiv på personlig assistans, Brusén Peter, Flyckt Karin (red.), Gothia Förlag 2012
Adolf Ratzka
Välviljans förtryck
Socialpolitiken styrs vanligtvis inte av dem vars liv den påverkar, utan av politiker och tjänstemän utifrån politiska hänsynstaganden och en nödvändigtvis begränsad kännedom om andra människors livsvillkor. Det gäller framför allt oss personer med omfattande funktionsnedsättningar som för vår överlevnad är beroende av andra människors praktiska insatser i det dagliga livet, exempelvis med uppstigning, påklädning, toalettbesök, duschning. Ju större vårt beroende är, desto självklarare tar sig omgivningen rätten att ha åsikter om vad vi behöver och desto mindre har vi som berörs att säga till om när det gäller hur vi vill leva våra liv och vilka samhällsinsatser vi behöver. Som resultat ser vi ofta lösningar och tjänster som Resultaten av lösningarna gör oss mer beroende av andra istället för oberoende.
- Independent Living-rörelsen banade vägen (sidan på svenska)
Chapter 2 Perspectives on personal assistance, Brusén Peter, Flyckt Karin (ed.), Gothia Förlag 2012
Adolf Ratzka
Benign oppression
Social policy is rarely made by the people whose lives it affects. Rather, it is formulated based on political considerations by politicians and bureaucrats who, by necessity, have limited knowledge of the conditions of other people’s lives – especially regarding those of us with extensive disabilities who depend on other people to survive and require practical assistance with activities of daily living such as getting out of bed, dressing, personal hygiene and bathing. The greater our dependence, the more others assume they are entitled to have opinions about our needs and the less those of us affected have a say in how we want to live our lives and what social resources we need. As a result, solutions and services often make us more dependent on others rather than independent.