Bologna has Italy's most comprehensive library devoted to disability, tucked away in the multicultural Pilastro neighborhood on the city's edge. The library is the beating heart of the Centro Documentazione Handicap, established in 1981 within the Aias (Italian Association for Spastic Assistance) and spun off as an independent body in 1996. Those were years when school integration laws were beginning to take hold, and awareness about disability was growing. In this climate, four young people with severe physical disabilities asked themselves a question that remained unthinkable: "How can someone with a serious disability become a resource to society, rather than merely someone to care for and pity?" One of the four was Claudio Imprudente, who would become a journalist, writer, and champion of everything that followed from that single question.
When pedagogue Andrea Canevaro donated his personal collection—the seed of what would become a much-expanded library—it sparked the founding of HP-Accaparlante, a magazine published until 2019 and now relaunched as a quarterly by La Meridiana press. The first issue, in 1983, tackled a subject that shocked the era: "Sex Denied" (and still does). From its pages emerged the voice of people living disability themselves: that "H" once thought voiceless finally spoke.
Magazine and library (part of Italy's national Opac lending network) opened doors to new educational and employment possibilities. What followed was the Progetto Calamaio (founded 1986 to bring educational programs into schools and reshape how society sees people with disabilities) and the Cooperativa Accaparlante (active since 2006 as both workplace and social hub). Four organizations, one DNA. They function as mixed-ability teams—educators with and without disabilities, alongside university interns, civil service volunteers, and young people from the juvenile detention center—and they design projects that "turn difficulty into creative possibility and help participants discover themselves and meet the other." One priority is full physical and cultural access: the cooperative employs people with various physical and cognitive disabilities to evaluate public spaces—theaters, hotels, care homes—for genuine accessibility, even in signage. In 2017 they created the Parimenti book series.
Proprio perché cresco (Because I'm Growing), published by La Meridiana, answered a call from people like Luca Errani and his daughter Chiara of the Arca-Arcobaleno Association, who wanted to "make sure people with disabilities could experience the simple joy of reading." Most young-adult books available in accessible formats (INBooks) were limited; children had far more choice. So they took classics—The Diary of Anne Frank, Dracula, and most recently Rodari's Giacomo di cristallo (whose heirs granted rights precisely because of the book's purpose)—simplified them using plain-language techniques, and translated them into symbols of augmentative and alternative communication by disabled workers at the cooperative.
INBooks proved unexpectedly useful for the many students still learning Italian. A small revelation: an "H" who doesn't just speak but acts, who builds rights and freedom for everyone.