On the occasion of the International Day of people with disabilities, VitaEurope met Peter Wehrli, founder of the Zentrum für Selbstbestimmtes Leben, Switzerland’s first and only Centre for independent living.
Fighting for equal rights for people with a disability is the mission of the ZSL, a non profit organisation that provides support to people with disabilities and empowers them to live their lives to the full. According to ZSL founder Peter Wehrli: “Most organizations in the field of disability, try to help the disabled so that they can live with the existing conditions. At the ZSL we, people with a disability, try to use all political means in order to change the existing conditions, so that people with a disability don’t need additional help”.
The centre campaigns to raise awareness within the community and institutions. Their aim? To fight for direct financial support so that people with disabilities can chose the services supplier, personal assistance and assistive product themselves, rather than being forced to be dependent on services that someone else has deemed ‘appropriate’.
Peter Wehrli, 56, has spent his whole life on a wheelchair and almost his entire youth in institutions and hospitals. After a career first as a psychotherapist and psychologist and then as a deputy sales manager, Wehrli searched in vain for a politically oriented disability organization to becoming involved in – not finding one he decided to found the first one in Switzerland himself. Today the ZSL is run by a handfull of voluntary activists with a disability. It is financially supported by an association with approximately 300 paying members.
How did you become interested in working in the third sector?
I have lived with a disability for almost all my life. It seems clear to me that in a democracy everybody has the right – but also the duty – to use the democratic means to chance society so that it better fits ones needs. I have as much right to be who I am and how I am as anybody else – and to participate in whatever the society has to offer – including responsibilities. Based on my life experience I came to the conclusion that a handicap is not what I am but what is done to people like me: we are excluded from society to punish us for not fitting the prevalent expectations. But disabling social conditions – actually a form of racism – can be changed. If I believe to have the capacity to change them, it is my duty to do whatever I can for it.
In your opinion what is the rights scenario in Switzerland today?
Switzerland is – despite or possibly because of its tremendous wealth – a very backward, almost medieval country when it comes to questions of equal rights. See women’s voting rights, which were only attained 40 years ago. Because the country is so rich, it can afford a tremendously “luxurious” (i.e. technically very expensive) separating world of institutions to keep the people with disabilities out of social life – but still at such a high level of creature comfort that most people affected prefer to preserve their own golden cage, rather than risking the dangers and the responsibility of freedom. I call it the disability industry. Like in most countries, this industry – deeply rooted in the charity rather than the human rights tradition – is well entrenched with the political class, so that it can comfortably ensure that people with disabilities remain at their mercy and by that a secure and steady source of their own power and income.
And what are the main challenges facing people with disabilities in Switzerland today?
To overcome the manifold dividing fronts forced upon us by the prevalent medication of our existence and realize, that we – the people who do not have ideal bodies, minds or souls – are actually the majority and have it, therefore, in our hands to change norms and laws so that they fit our human needs. Concretely we lead several important fights on several levels in parallel. One is the fight for re-financing our “invalid insurance” (what a terrible name!!) – the financing of which has been neglected by politics for 25 years and is now in grave deficit – which is the (intended!) opportunity of our right-populist “Swiss People’s Party” to try and reduce support for people with disabilities in general. The peoples vote on that will be on May 17, 2009. In parallel we fight for a new law, which will provide some financial coverage of the costs of personal assistance. Thus, personal assistance, the viable alternative to lock us away in institutions, will 2010 finally also become realizable in Switzerland for the first time.
In what way can civil society associations help people with disabilities rise up to these challenges?
Mostly by doing less for the disabled – and more with them. Or, to formulate it differently: empower and support self help rather than charity organizations. But also: demand of the self-help organizations that they share responsibility and actively participate in politically shaping the social reality! Wherever decisions are made, concerning the lives of people with disability, those persons have to participate themselves, formulate their views and demand to be heard. Civil society associations can systematically refuel moneys into political self representation, rather than into the construction of separating “solutions for the disabled”.
What does the International Day for People with Disabilities mean for you? Will your organization organize any events or campaigns?
Generally, we do not like that much to be in the row of objects to which the world agrees to spend a day of special attention – like the day of the tree – the day of the elephant – the day of the water toilet – etc. etc. It is especially frustrating to experience, how the media dutifully feign interest – one day in advance at best – which means: superficially, fast and without real commitment. But that’s life ….
Since, in Switzerland, this year’s December 3 has been officially dedicated to the topic of “Personal Assistance for All who need it”, we had the idea to invite politicians to give a day of personal assistance to a person with a severe disability – and the media (especially Swiss television and Swiss radio) were supposed to cover this. However, despite numerous efforts, neither Swiss Radio nor Swiss Television agreed to commit themselves in advance to cover this action. Thus we cancelled the project – to the great disappointment of the people with disability who were ready to participate. We were only able to organize one story in the MIGROS Magazine – one of the best read weekly in the German speaking part of Switzerland. It will bring a colourful report about the day of Personal Assistance given by one of our National Counsellors (Ms Erika Forster) to a young woman (Brigit Mueller) who successfully pioneered the fight out of the institution and who lives today integrated in the community – supported by self employed personal assistance.
Find out more: www.zslschweiz.ch
