ISTITUTO REGIONALE RITTMEYER PER I CIECHI

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.