Deciding what to eat, moving about freely, organizing your day — the dream of independence that people with disabilities too often see slip away amid daily obstacles. On Saturday, September 21, the association Terra Libera Tutti opened the Veneto's first social housing project in Zero Branco, designed to foster autonomy for people with disabilities through work on the land.
The first three residents are women in their fifties and thirties: Anna, who works at a preschool, and Debora, employed at a dairy cooperative, along with Maria, 30, who graduated from a humanities high school in Scorzè. Two of them live with severe disabilities that legally require "permanent, continuous, and comprehensive care assistance" — conditions typically excluded from traditional autonomy programs, which focus on milder disabilities. For now, all three are supported by an educator, but the goal is to reduce that presence to just one hour daily, helping with hygiene and dinner preparation.
«People with disabilities spend years in relationships of care, managed by parents and caregivers, and they're not used to making their own choices,» explains Andrea Gambardella, 30, one of Terra Libera Tutti's founders. «But when you give them the chance to care for another living being, you see them transform. The results are remarkable.»
This is where the land comes in. Terra Libera Tutti already runs a farmhouse in Roncade where four residents — men and young people with disabilities — live and work. They split their time between household tasks and labor in the fields and stables. «Working the land lets people with disabilities do real work that sustains life,» Gambardella adds. «It builds their sense of responsibility in ways nothing else can.»
The Zero Branco house has a vegetable garden, and a chicken coop will soon follow. Along with seeds and feed, these three women will plant their own independence, realizing the dream that anyone should have: a home truly their own.
Source: Corriere del Veneto