Cooperativa sociale integrata agricola Giuseppe Garibaldi

The Giuseppe Garibaldi Integrated Agricultural Social Cooperative was conceived, desired and organized, within the G. Garibaldi Agricultural Technical Institute, by a group of parents of students with autism in need of intensive support. It was born as a school laboratory to meet the needs of students with disabilities as well as their families, but also to offer all students (involved in the inclusion pathways as peers) new training opportunities. The Garibaldi Cooperative was born with the support of citizens and national associations and with the encouragement of local authorities, municipalities and local health authorities, signatories of an interinstitutional agreement protocol for the realization of a project for the school inclusion of students with autism enrolled in the Garibaldi High School. The legal and operational headquarters are in the “Podere Lazio” and include 4 hectares of land intended for agricultural, agritourism and restaurant use. From 2010 to today it has become the experimental site for new training courses, mentoring and job start-up; the place where, for the first time, even young adults with Autism in need of intensive support enter the job market, and do so with unexpected success; the epicenter of a movement of associations, families and professionals who demand greater respect for the laws and, in particular, the activation of article 14 of Law 328/2000 (promulgated in year 2000), which states that everyone has the right to his/her own "Individual Project", which his/her family can request the predisposition of to the Municipality that, in turn, analyzes, organizes and optimizes all the resources (economic and human) that revolve around the life of a person with autism: social, school, health and private social services are put in an individual treatment plan, shared by everyone and coordinated by a case manager. The "Garibaldi" cooperative, which is a farm and not a therapeutic center, is a habilitation company, promotes an individualized habilitation plan based on the use of cognitive-behavioral techniques and directly inscribed in paths that are appropriate to be defined as "professionalizing"; this way, the cooperative fills the gap that the legislation contained in Law 68/1999 (the only regulatory tool for access to work, but referring to a "balance of skills", which for many students with Autism would be inaccessible) puts between students with Autism and the world of work. The cultural, scientific, socio-economic innovation of the "Garibaldi" cooperative experience rather refers directly to the aforementioned Article 14 of Law 328/2000 and to the formal contents of our Constitution that, within Article 3, states that it is the duty of the Italian Republic to remove those obstacles of an economic or social nature which constrain the freedom and equality of citizens, thereby impeding the full development of the human person and the effective participation of all workers in the political, economic and social organisation of the country. The qualification sets which arise from the needs and skills of the people with Autism involved in this experience tend to coincide with the working ones and in an essential way give the direction that this cooperative, in cultural and productive terms, can afford to take.