In Italy, 13 million people today live with a disability. 13 million human beings for whom the right to choose every day to get around by taking the bus, the train, the car or simply going down the street has been transformed for decades into a privilege to aspire to. 13 million people for whom walking in a park, going to the pharmacy, reading a newspaper article represent complicated attempts to stay in a world that ultimately does not provide for them. Those who talk about them call them barriers: architectural, IT, sensory, cultural. Those who experience them define them as obstacles to dignity. The dignity of choosing where to go, what places to visit, what to read, what concert to listen to, what vacation to take. Basically, what a life to live.
Through the voices of those who experience first-hand the weight of barriers, first cultural then physical, the third episode of In all directions, the Open podcast in collaboration with the Lega del Filo d'Oro, talks about what this means in the age of digitalization and unpredictable artificial intelligence. This is what Matilde Laurìa, Italian Paralympic judo champion, does; Francesco Mercurio, president of the Committee of the DeafBlind and Valentina Tomirotti, wheelchair journalist and activist for disability issues. At the table led by journalist Giada Giorgi are also the Minister of Disabled People Alessandra Locatelli and the president of the Lega del Filo d'Oro Rossano Bartoli.
