On the 21st of July 2025 one year was marked since the passing of Adolf Ratzka. As we remember his life and extraordinary contributions, we, and specially on behalf of Adolf’s widow Dorothee Riedel and daughter Katharina Ratzka, express our heartfelt gratitude to all who have honored Adolf in various ways.
With this short note we want to share how Adolf’s legacy lives on within the Independent Living Institute and invite your continued support for the cause of Independent Living.
Adolf founded the Independent Living Institute (ILI) in 1993, and it remains a driving force for innovation and advocacy in disability rights. With the ongoing support of STIL—the cooperative for personal assistance that Adolf also established in 1984—ILI continues its mission to empower persons with disabilities.
Over the years, ILI has launched several groundbreaking projects: radio programs, wheelchair taxi, and accessible fashion—most of them funded by the Swedish Inheritance Fund. Since 2007, we also publish Assistanskoll, a vital news source on personal assistance, largely sustained through banner advertising. However, beyond these projects, ILI remains reliant on external funding and collaborative partnerships in research and development.
As we look to the future, the ILI Board will continue under the leadership of myself, Jamie Bolling with the daily work at the office being excellently administered by Linda Robertsson. Starting in September, Emil Erdtman will join us by taking over the role as the Director of ILI. Emil, who has a visual impairment, has been an active figure in the Swedish disability rights movement since the 1990s. He earned his PhD from Lund University in 2024, focusing on Universal Design in urban development—a field that intersects with Adolf’s academic background in land economics. Another overlap is the commitment for Latin America, underscoring the global dimension of our movement.
Emil previously led ILI’s Law as a Tool project (2017–2019), which mapped discrimination related to inaccessibility, introduced in Swedish law in 2015. He was on the ILI team that organized the 2018 international conference that helped launch a Swedish Association in this field and the Facebook group Disability Rights Defenders, now a vibrant community with around 3000 members.
Emil is committed to building on Adolf’s vision—adapting and expanding the concept of Independent Living for the challenges of tomorrow. In this endeavor, we warmly invite you to engage with ILI, offering your advice, ideas, and collaboration around the world so that our projects cover topics you find important.
ILI always needs support and advice for our ongoing work, helping us sustain and grow our programs through for example the widening of our networks. ILI has growing networks with disabled activists around the world as well as with researchers, civil society, governments, business, cultural stakeholders, disabled migrants and more. With support from our networks we are able to propose better projects and can better promote Independent Living.
As ILI depends on external support we also welcome donations for various projects and for the Adolf Ratzka Memorial Fund for Migrants with Disabilities. This fund is dedicated to migrants with disabilities seeking improved opportunities in the Swedish labor market. The projects and this fund support the development of Independent Living and the empowerment of disabled people.
Thank you for honoring Adolf’s legacy by standing with us. You can find more information on what we do on the ILI website – https://www.independentliving.org as well as the library which has gathered many articles on IL. There is also the www.ratzka.se the website that Adolf started but did not get the time to complete. The website is undergoing construction and once done will have all of Adolf’s work available.
Warm regards,
Jamie Bolling – Chair of the board
Independent Living Institute
