LEARNING AS TIME GOES BY...

Leyre Garde Gajón
Responsible for the Leisure Centre Disminuidos Físicos de Aragón (Physically Impaired People Association)

The way I think of life, the perceptions about things I used to have before I started working here, have changed a lot during these last years...

My name is Leyre Garde Gajón and I am a Social Worker. While I was studying I never happened to consider working with impaired persons, nevertheless was I concerned or worried about which I often hear now: ACCESSIBILIY.

I have been for the last four years and am at present the one in charge and responsible for the Leisure and Cultural Centre of the Physically Impaired People in Aragón. Time does really fly!

When I look back and think of my first day at work here or remember the first excursions, a smile is drawn in my face: I could just see wheelchairs, crutches. everything was so new to me! As time goes by one forgets about those aid equipment and learns to see the person.

Along these four years, the way I think of life, the perceptions about things I used to have before I started working here, have changed a lot .one learns: one learns to value small things that weren't considered before and one begins to give importance to those things that are really worth it.

The area in which I work is the leisure and the free time. It is said that ours is at present a leisure culture, but it would be necessary to consider if all of us have access to leisure activities in an equal way. Leisure and its enjoyment is no longer a luxury but a right. That's the direction and aims to be pursued because this will benefit all.

Many leisure, cultural and recreational activities are organized at our Cultural Centre: from workshops (painting, English, theatre, music...), week-end excursions and trips... among many others. Our activities are always aimed to all, since one of our objectives is integration from normalization, that is to say, we don't look for specific activities or special resources for us; what we want is to access those activities which already exist in a comfortable and dignified manner (without having to be lifted, without having to enter by the back door ...).

But we face problems: the so-called architectonical and urban barriers (stairs, too steep ramps, bunks in lodgings and accommodations...) an endless list of disadvantages that make of our trips a continuous odyssey of overcoming; but as one of our characteristics is overcoming, we will continue travelling, enjoying and fighting so that a day will arrive when everything is accessible.

Difficult might be to convince others how important is to eliminate architectonical barriers, but quite more complicated it is to break mental barriers... because there is still people who do not understand that impaired people are, first of all, people with the same expectations and needs than the rest and that, therefore, we all must be in equality of conditions, starting off on the premise that we are all different and that in the difference is wealth lies.

In the end, accessibility is a question of knowing a certain reality, a matter of empathy and will.

Leyre Garde Gajón

Responsible for the Leisure Centre Disminuidos Físicos de Aragón
(Physically Impaired People in Aragón Association)
dfa@dfa-org.com
www.dfa-org.com

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