The Malta Federation of Organisations Persons with Disability (MFOPD) is the voluntary national umbrella organisation for the disability sector. It was established 53 years ago and today it has 40 enrolled NGOs, all working for and with persons with disabilities.
Personal Assistance (PA) for persons with disabilities has been on MFOPD’s agenda for quite some time now. Finally, things started moving on this issue – for the first time ever, the national 2022 budget allocated a substantial sum of money for PA; discussions, involving MFOPD and ENIL, on a PA reform took place; MFOPD obtained national funding for research on PA in Malta, the results of which will be concluded by the end of October. MFOPD wanted to make a step further…it wanted to inform itself about good practices on the subject.
MFOPD is a member of ENIL who is always ready to help and support its members. YHD (Association for Theory & Culture of Handicap) was one of three organisations suggested by ENIL for good practices. YHD accepted to host us immediately and they drafted a great programme for our whole study visit.
The Maltese group of 8 persons was made up of two persons with intellectual disability and their PA, two volunteers and two MFOPD officials. This unique experience taught us a lot but mostly how a PA can change a person’s life for the better.
We heard and witnessed about the great change in the lives of persons with disability, from living in an institution to living independently in the community with the support of a PA; we learnt about the professional Independent Living programme being offered by YHD – how it works, the training they offer etc; we met and discussed with persons with disabilities about their PA service and how independent they have become; we shared our own experiences and discussed with YHD representatives our hopes for Malta’s way forward on the subject. We were also given highlights from their PA law which points were noted by us, as here in Malta, the PA law is still being drafted.
We were very surprised to see that they have accessible maps and a ‘Ljubljana by wheelchair app’. This is very interesting. We used to walk it from our hotel to the YHD premises and the fully accessible environment was noticeable.
We were inundated with information, and it is not easy to put it on black and white. Of course, they had their trial-and-error moments and in our opinion, this is why their way can work out well in Malta. We only wish we had a magic wound to immediately make PA work here in Malta as YHD is now doing in Slovenia.
This visit was funded under Erasmus+ Programme Key Action 121.
Marthese Mugliette
President
MFOPD
