The principal aim of these commison is to grant a real right of study for the disable students and it is very attentive in reminding students and teachers not to fall in to an easy but useless pity.

Even if one can obtain a rather good attitude from teachers towards disabled students regarding the examining procedure and the decision of exams dates, no reduction or simplification of exam contents can be allowed. It is important that a disabled people's graduation diploma is not a "handicapped" diploma, a reduced diploma.

Last, any intervention by the commission and by H2000 must be without a cost (almost) for the University, as to be easily reproducible by other Universities in Italy.

STATUTE (11/11/94)

ART.1 - Creation

The "University association of students disabled and not for reduction of disability", called H2000 (handicap in 2000) is constituted in Padova. It is a non profit organization, it relies on voluntary work from young people, university students, and disabled people themselves.

ART.2 - purposes.

This association, by its members' free activity, aims to:

• Contribute to correct application to the principles of fellowship and equal opportunities stated in the Italian Constitution, the application of these principles being particularly difficult in relation to mental, physical and sensorial disabled people. In the effort to accomplish this, we mean to favour and to promote the annullation of the architectural, social and cultural barriers that in fact stand against a dignified and free life.
• Favour researches in any field (medical, scientific, or cultural) that could contribute to prevention and reduction of disability (which causes handicap).
• Co-ordinate the efforts of them who, with a voluntary attitude, give their human resources and energies to fight Handicap.
• Freely make available University students to the society (single citizens, associations, schools, private and public boards), who will make short-term works (expertise; legal, technical, medical assistance; thesis, studies, language courses, informatics; ...).
• Train a new manager class, with a new sensibility for handicap, by a collaboration between disabled and non-disabled classmates, and by recognising the central role of culture and information.

Why?

• Because times are ready to create a new handicap culture.

  Miss America '94 is deaf-and-dumb.

  Informatics and telematics allow Steve Hawkings to be one of the greatest living astrophysicist.

  In the USA, the ADA (Americans with disabilities act) is valid since July 1990. It is meant to knock down any physical and psychological barrier which, actually limiting citizens' freedom and equality, forbid a human full development and everybody's participation to political, social and economic organization of the Country (see Art. 3 of the Italian Constitution).

  The handicap is a situation of emargination in which a disabled person falls because of a impairment. To reduce (or even eliminate) a handicap and if it is not possible to heal it, we can and we have to use any mechanical, electronic and informatical device which could eliminate the impairment. A physical or sensorial impairment doesn't imply cognitive deficits. Learning to use a computer is by far easier than learning to walk, to ride a bicycle, to drive, and once learnt, using this to "travel", to work, to study, is by far less dangerous and tiring. It's not clear, then, why one usually thinks a disabled person will never bypass his impairments.

• Because, not to count "traditional" disabled people who finally reach places which were formerly off limits, the number of newly-disabled (formerly non disabled people) is growing to an enormous extent.

  In the last 10-15 years, thanks to re-animation techniques, the percent of people comming out of comas raised from 30% to 70%, thus creating every year, all over the world, hundreds of "undead" people, former engineers, students, teachers, doctors, businessmen...
  We have no data for Italy; but in the near Great Britain newly-disabled are 30.000, half of which young people ranging between 15 and 25 years!

• Because it is a good thing to use, even minimally, the enormous quantity of human and intellectual forces available in universities, either today and in the future.

  In The University of Padova there are about 60.000 students, and 7.000 are on graduate thesis. Handicap is a multidisciplinary problem; here you are some very general hints for possible thesis:

  • social costs;
  • social entering or re-entering;
  • numbers;
  • the way society sees handicap;
  • classical prevention (pollution, street accidents,...);
  • telematics, remote work and remote education by telecommunication
  • The right to University access;
  • mass-media and handicap;
  • Rehabilitation and precocious diagnosis;

  If a graduated student with 100% results is very good, so much better would be someone who, with his thesis, has already shown what he's worth and what he can do. A handicap is provoked by the unjustified fear that a great part of society feels when facing difference. If an university student is so lucky to live next to other disabled students, when he becomes teacher, manager, engineer, etc. he don't have any reason to emarginate a disabled person, thus being an example for companions and employees.

• Because the best thing is to employ, even to a reduced extension, the enormous availability of disabled people's human and intellectual resources, either today or in the future.

  An impairment can be viewed as an impossible obstacle. It generates handicap, a life of handicap and of passive assistence. Otherwise, it can be solved, thanks to appropriate aids, thus giving this person the chance of expressing his/her potentialities.

• Because, as we say in Italy, "il buon giorno si vede dal mattino" that is "the good day you'll see, from the morning"

  We mustn't wait to be "settled down" (home, job, family), or to be personally touched by handicap to begin to work; on the contrary, it's exactly during these years, when it's easier to dream, that you'll fix your values and your ideas.

Informatics for disabled people

After this high sounding and utopic declaration, we want to present you with some informatic projects on which we are working. We are working on them to bypass impairments, on which disabilities are based.

Let us Bypass

Did you know that

• the first type writer was done for a blind member of the English Royal Family?

• Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone attemping to convert speech to a visual rappresentation in order to accomodate a greater choice of information modalities for his wife who had a hearing loss

• the Arpanet project (from which Internet was born later on) initially didn't include Email, but the experience of one of the planners, who had already experimented a text messaging device (TTY) to comunicate by phone with his deaf wife, influenced the decision to include Email?

• voice synthesys and OCR have been used for years by blind people to read press?

• Quadriplegic people have been using vocal recognition to independently interact with the world?

Date: Sat, 25 Feb 95 16:17:11 -0800
Sender: doitsem@u.washington.edu 
To: Multiple recipients of list 
Subject: Computers and Disability FAQ Project (long)

Some time back, Sheryl Burgstahler, in consultation with some of the scholars
of the DO-IT program, began work on a FAQ concerning computers and disability.
In consultation with Norman Coombs, we have enlisted the support of EASI to
collaborate in the creation of a document which can be of benefit to several
newsgroups and mailing lists, and can be of assistance to the many people on
the net  who find themselves in need of this information.

VALUE OF COMPUTER AND NETWORK ACCESS:
Of what special value is access to computers and network resources to
an individual

 with low vision?
 who is blind?
 who has a mobility impairment?
 with a hearing impairment?
 with difficulty speaking?
 with acquired brain injury?

How can science students who have disabilities get in touch with other such
students or mentors or the like via adaptive computing on the network?

The real time captioning for deaf students