Greece is the word

With Greece teetering on the brink of economic collapse and having to rely on international financial help, disabled activist Yannis Vardakastanis reflects on the lives of disabled people in his country

I get the feeling, and I hope that I am not proved right, that things are getting worse for disabled people in Greece. One indication is the lives of people with mental health problems. A few months ago things seemed to be stable and most of the big psychiatric hospitals had closed down. But I have been informed that there is a risk that some people might be returned to psychiatric hospitals because there are not the resources to support them in the community. It would be a horrible setback if even one person returns.

Since the economic crisis began, the situation for disabled people here has been a bit mixed. In 2010 and 2011 the disability movement was able to put pressure on the government to keep to increases that had been previously agreed and increase disability benefits. But there have been cuts that have disproportionately affected disabled people and their families. One example is that disabled people’s salaries and pensions have been cut without any account of their extra needs being taken. So we have asked our government to take those needs into account when making cuts. It is important here because there is a much lower level of service provision for disabled people compared to the UK.

Now President of the European Disability Forum, I was born in 1957 in Zakynthos. I went to blind school when I became blind aged 12. In 1982, I graduated in Political Sciences at the University of California in Berkeley. I became active in blind organisations soon after I lost my sight and I got involved with broader disability movements in the 1990s and became President of the National Confederation of Disabled People in Greece in 1993.

I was elected Vice President of the European Disability Forum when it was established in 1997 and I was elected President in 1999 and re-elected in 2001, 2005 and 2009.

When I got involved in disability politics I was motivated by ideology and I had no plans to become a President of an international disability body. I think it is usual to have no real plans when you are young.

I was very happy to be involved in a movement and to work for my group and to demonstrate with my colleagues.

The 1970s, when the country was run by a military junta was a dark time for disabled people in Greece. The real spring for Greek disabled people was the 1980s. The socialists came to power in 1981 and they gave positions to disabled people as special advisers in ministries and they gave disabled people important positions in other public bodies. But most importantly, they put in place policies, measures and programmes that started creating an organising system of support to disabled people in

Greece. In the 1980s I worked in the ministries for education and labour and in 1989 I began doing freelance consultancy work.

But in spite of that, it was not easy for disabled people to progress and establish careers during the 1980s because we had been excluded traditionally.

After the advances of the 1980s, the 1990s were a time for consolidation when the disability movement gained recognition and organised and established itself throughout the country. It was also a time when we tried to capitalise on the political work of the 1980s and improve benefits and service provision for disabled people.

The Greek anti-discrimination legislation that protects disabled people is weak compared to that in the UK. We have European legislation, but it is still not enough. I don’t think that Greece is alone there. I would say that discrimination and social exclusion are prevailing features of the Greek situation regarding disabled people.

I live in Athens where provision for disabled people as in other big cities is much better than it is for people who live in the islands or the rural areas of the country. Services like day-care and rehabilitation centres are concentrated in the big cities. So you have families with disabled children who migrate from smaller cities or the islands to the big cities, driven by the need for better services for their children.

We have been staging demonstrations to put pressure on the government to preserve disability benefits, to introduce employment schemes, and to make the education system fairer. We are confident that we can put enough pressure on ministers, but we are not so confident that they will deliver. But we will do our utmost.

I cannot say what the future holds for disabled people because we do not have a stable situation. If we knew that Greece would undergo a period of economic reform and austerity measures while remaining in Europe, I might be able to answer the question. But the situation is changing from day to day and what the leaders decide at a European level tends to lag behind developments concerning the financial crisis. Greece has its own problems and needs to put in place a system to take itself out of the crisis. But the crisis is not Greek. It has a Greek dimension, but it is not Greek.

One of the most magnificent things and something I will remember for the rest of my life is that the more difficult the period, the more united we disabled people are. We have no personal agendas and are all committed to working for the good of our community and our families.