Category: Personal Stories

“Independent Living means a lot to me of course because without personal assistance I was not able to work and meet my friends and live in my own home and so on… it’s very important to me to have independent living.” Meet Jesper Mathiesen, member consultant for LOBPA, Denmark’s largest non-profit personal assistance providers and…

“I’ve always had this, this disability identity of sorts… even if I was the only disabled child in school, I always had the idea that I have the same rights as everybody else.” Meet Emma Åstrand, the International Coordinator for STIL, founders of independent living in Sweden, and providers of not-for-profit personal assistance. I met…

“The discussions nowadays in Finland, the organizations are worried about money, and the right-wing government, and the cuts, and the atmosphere that is not very human-rights friendly… But, this is all the more reason for us to exist I think… we have to. No one else will fight for us, we have to fight for…

It was a surprise when Katja arrived back to the Kynnys Turku office with her daughter Amanda at her side. I had heard about Amanda in our earlier conversation together with the Kynnys team, where we discussed the hard work Kynnys was doing fighting for disability rights in Finland with unfortunately diminishing funding, the importance…

“When we created the organization, people didn’t know about personal assistance, independent living, this kind of stuff… today we have PA legislation, we have pilot projects for about 2,000 people enjoying some personal assistance… It’s not perfect, but it’s a huge difference from when we started, so we’re happy and proud about that.” Meet Kamil…