Beskrivelse av organisasjon

From the early twentieth century to the third millennium, almost a century of history. The Istituto dei Ciechi Rittmeyer was
founded in 1913, thanks to the consistent donation of Baroness Cecilia de Rittmeyer, very sensitive to the issue of visual
impairment, in the spirit of Protestant patronage. From yesterday to today, the path of the Institute has been marked by
scientific and social progress and by the changing needs of users. His activity as a welfare center for the blind started,
around the 1920s and 1930s the Rittmeyer knew the gradual transformation into an educational institution. In the midseventies
the center for people with multiple disabilities was established, which later led to the activation of an
occupational laboratory, to give children with multiple difficulties a perspective for the maintenance and further
development of their skills. Today the Institute has entered a new phase: while maintaining many of the already
consolidated activities - support for school and university students, professional training, the occupational laboratory, the
daytime recreation center for the elderly - it has gradually left behind the criterion of the residential setting as the only
effective response for the rehabilitation and the achievement of autonomy in the low vision or blind person. The action of
the Rittmeyer specialists is mainly directed towards tailored projects, characterized by a multidisciplinary approach with
interventions on a weekly basis. A result obtained thanks to the personnel and to the establishment of a multiprofessional
team, able of giving a global response to the daily questions of the users. The team includes, amongst others, specialists
in typhlology, psychology, psychomotor skills, physiotherapy, music therapy, speech therapy, visual rehabilitation, basic
stimulation, pet-therapy, multidisabilities, horticultural therapy, daily living skills, orientation and mobility activities. Special
attention is paid to the information and communication technology (ICT) for the persons with visual impairments: these
activities are exploited towards youngsters, collaborating closely with the schools, to the young adults, to better offer to
them a vocational and educational paths for this specific session of activities, and to the third age in the last years. In
recent years the activity of the Residence for the elderly with impaired vision has been added to the complex of functions
performed regularly by the Institute, a concrete and articulated response to the multiple needs of the third and fourth age.

Inkluderingstemaer

This organisation is willing to involve volunteers who face situations which make their participation in activities more difficult, from the following categories for different types of project:

• Disability
• Educational difficulties
• Health problems