Today marks – the European Day for Independent Living. The Malta Federation of Organisations Persons with Disability (MFOPD) joins the European Network on Independent Living (ENIL) and all member organisations in the celebrations of this important European day.

MFOPD said that “this is an occasion to highlight the right to independent living for all persons with disability. Personal assistance is the key to ‘living independently and being included in the community’ for persons with disability as otherwise there would be no future to look forward to.”

It said that in ENIL’s words, “Independent Living is the daily demonstration of human rights-based disability policies. Independent Living is possible through the combination of various environmental and individual factors that allow disabled people to have control over their own lives.

“This includes the opportunity to make choices and decisions regarding where to live, with whom to live and how to live. Services must be accessible to all and provided on the basis of equal opportunity, allowing disabled people flexibility in our daily life.

“Independent Living requires that the built environment and transport are accessible, that there is availability of technical aids, access to personal assistance and/or community-based services. It is necessary to point out that Independent Living is for all disabled persons, regardless of the level of their support needs.”

It said that ENIL also said that, “the key principles of Independent Living are: choice, control, freedom, equality. “Living independently” does not mean that disabled people have to be independent in the sense of living a highly individualised and self-sufficient life, at a distance from other people.

“It is, rather, based on a social model of disability, which recognises that people are not limited in their choices because of any inherent feature or condition of the person themselves, but by the social and physical environment in which they live. In enabling environments, things are not done to a person, but rather disabled people are supported, just like anyone else, to make independent and autonomous, and when needed, supported decisions.

“Article 19 of UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognises “the equal right of all persons with disabilities to live in the community, with choices equal to others”, and requires that States take “effective and appropriate measures to facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this right and their full inclusion and participation in the community.”

“Article 19 does not differentiate between people with different impairments and applies equally to all disabled people. This means that everyone should have the right to live independently, regardless of the “severity” of their impairment, their age, gender, ethnicity, material status or any other characteristic.”

The Malta Federation of Organisations Persons with Disability (MFOPD) is the national umbrella organisation for the disability sector. It is the voice of, approximately, 37,000 persons with disability in the Maltese islands. It said that it has 33 enrolled member organisations all working within the disability sector.

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