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Recipes For A Revolution: Albergo Etico and the empowerment of those with disabilities

Albergo Etico
© Albergo Etico

Roar writer Laura Saracino on Italian group Albergo Etico and the strides they are making in the support of people with disabilities as they navigate the workforce.

In contemporary societies, where working life defines an individual’s value and identity, misconceptions about the capacity of people with disabilities to perform jobs are often prevalent; not only among non-disabled employers, but also among family members and disabled people themselves. As the World Health Organization reports, these prejudices stem from the belief that people with disabilities are less productive than their non-disabled counterparts, resulting in a discriminatory hiring process as well as an overly protective approach and leading to the detrimental treatment of disabled workers.

Strategies geared towards education and integration of people with physical and cognitive are insufficient, since there is no actual integration between cis-abled people and dis-abled people; the places of co-existence offer equal opportunities for neither learning nor doing. Schools do not fulfil their educational tasks, serving only as deposit spaces lacking adequate formative programmes. Families are mostly concerned about the caring factor, willing to fill the daily schedule whilst focused on preventing future scenarios of loneliness and abandonment.

Albergo Etico, an Italian organisation active in the field of hospitality, shows how this belief system can be challenged and eventually changed. The organisation employs people with different degrees of certified disabilities, including them in a network that builds their awareness of their own capabilities. They learn by doing at their own pace; a full-round, all-encompassing experience merging family with school and the working environment to become a character-building experience for the individual.

© Albergo Etico

The idea was born in 2006 when Niccolò, a young man with Down Syndrome, carried out an internship at Tacabanda, Antonio and Egidio De Benedetto’s restaurant in Asti. Niccolò’s experience paved the way to a series of traineeships creating and consolidating an inclusive space for people to work and learn. The method developed is called “Download”, an attempt to describe the “action of synthesis and simplification of the professional experience toward the person with cognitive, sensory and physical deficit”. At its core, it is an active framework featuring both theoretical and practical component. With the opening of the “Download Cooperative” in 2015, the multi-layered system proposed by the school has become a three-step scheme, its main goal being the autonomy and self-determination of the mentees.

Incorporating principles of the Montessori method, the Cooperative ensures a continuous application of the skills acquired at Albergo Etico in one’s own family environment, the space that leads towards concrete achievement. The system is accessible for anyone willing to participate, and it starts with the family as the first pillar of the journey, constantly accompanying the individual towards their own personal fulfilment. Although creatively customising the paths depending on specific needs and capabilities, the Educational Agreement begins at home, where the people are first trained then responsible for taking care of the house, the very same tasks they will be asked to carry out while working in the hotel.

Antonio De Benedetto, chef and co-founder of Albergo Etico, says the project’s goal is “to dismantle the belief that disability means productive incapability by creating personalized working opportunities and blending a Montessori approach towards learning that goes beyond ‘school time’. We are not a professionalisation or an employment agency, but a much more complex project aiming at providing people with a certified personal autonomy allowing them to live in a community, in and between others, as an active part of the civil society”.

He calls the project “our recipes for a revolution”; a social revolution that subverts the trend of inequal treatment experienced by people with Down Syndrome and other disabled individuals, helping them to re-examine their own skills and feel like an integral part of society – as community members able to do their jobs and to live as fully independent individuals.

The team has grown in number over the years. Niccolò, who lives in his own apartment in Asti, has tutored many of his colleagues. His girlfriend Jessica works with him as a waitress along with Matteo, the bonèt-master, and Martina, the shiatsu masseuse. New hotels have opened in eight different cities in the country as well as around the world, with locations in Argentina, Australia, Slovakia, and plans to open locations in Palestine.

© Albergo Etico

A documentary by Australian director Trevor Graham on Albergo Etico has been nominated for global prizes and awards, including the SR2021 Socially Relevant Film Festival in New York City and the Osaka 2021 Film Festival. It was also shortlisted in the top 20 Actions of Social Economic Innovations for the Angelo Ferro Award 2021. Nationwide, the organisation is active in spreading awareness by participating in different panels and festivals, as seen during the Milan Digital Week held in March 2021, when the founder was invited as a guest lecturer on the panel about accessible tourism and community sharing mobility.

This popularity and the rising interest from stakeholders and investor in this model of inclusive training and formation is based on strong evidence. A Social Return on Investment Index (SROI) analysis has measured the social return of Albergo Etico in Asti as generating €3.72 per €1 invested. The return is even higher in terms of social value generated by the activities of the association. Even better results were achieved in cities like Rome and Pistoia, where the group’s SROI index equalled 5,11 and 5 respectively.

The organisation successfully reached its goals of ensuring independence and freedom are conscious, active choices of the individuals it supports. This work has shown how the Montessori method, if implemented in an efficient way, can play an important role in the transition from the learning environment to working life, equipping people with Down Syndrome with further learning and working opportunities. As such, the approach can be considered a milestone in shrinking the substantial difference between cis-abled and dis-abled people by being an adequate way to address and enhance a wider pool of potentialities.

Implementing the system in professional areas other than hospitality with measures tailored to their specialities could be a challenge, especially in contexts where school systems are too delayed in developing an effecting framework systemically changing the social landscape for people with disabilities. But the major obstacle to overcome is the perception of such realities as an exception, as stand-out examples and not as part of the “normality”. As Chef Di Benedetto says: “We have a solution, but a problem is not solved when we have a solution, no matter how efficient that might be. A problem is solved when it is no longer a problem. We made the first step, but there is still a long way to go”.

This is a solutions journalism article produced during the 2021 SoJourn write-a-thon. Solutions journalism is investigative reporting on responses to social issues. Learn more about it here.

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5'2 of curls, optimism and loud laughs.
Fond of humans and always chatting with everyone about this and that.

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