IF reaching Trieste on foot starting from Ventimiglia is a long and tortuous undertaking, covering the journey by sea, descending and then climbing the boot, can become a dangerous and tiring experience. Little thing, however, compared to the obstacles that people with disabilities who live in Italy face every day, more than 3 million. This is why, with the aim of raising awareness of the rights of those who are often treated as invisible, Salvatore Cimmino, 57 years old and a leg amputated in his youth, is determined to finish this very special tour of Italy by swimming.
Having entered the water at the beginning of May on the border with France, Cimmino has reached the halfway point of the Giro d’Italia by swimming and is preparing to complete the most tiring stage: the 54 kilometers of open sea that separate Palermo from Ustica, on the afternoon of 23 July. His enterprise starts from further away. When he was just 15 he was struck by a particularly aggressive form of osteosarcoma which requires amputation of the right leg in the middle of the femur. “At the end of 2005 I discovered, for physiotherapeutic reasons, that I knew how to swim. The prostheses of the time were very different from the current ones and their use, over the years, had ended up damaging my spine: without help, not I couldn’t even get out of bed anymore, “he says.
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The sacrifices to regain independence materialize in the swimming pool. The benefits are not limited to the health of the body, they also free the mind: without prostheses, suspended and free in movements, Cimmino gradually acquires confidence with the aquatic environment. In a few months, the tub begins to get tight. A Fiamme Oro instructor, struck by his determination, does the rest: in the summer of 2007 Cimmino made a first swimming tour of Italy, receiving extraordinary media, sports and social feedback. “At that moment I realized that what I had experienced up to then as a personal need was actually extremely widespread. According to the World Health Organization, there are nearly one billion people living with some form of disability in the world. in the future the number is destined to grow “. Cimmino becomes the standard-bearer of the rights of people with disabilities in numerous swimming competitions around the world.
In order to protect disability, Italy has endowed itself with a state-of-the-art legislative heritage. However, in many cases it is not put into practice. “I am not referring only to the removal of architectural barriers but also to the right to access technological prostheses: in the absence of the implementing decrees, their inclusion in the essential levels of assistance in 2017 remained on paper “explains Cimmino. Some of the most recent devices, capable of connecting to the nervous system via bluetooth, he explains, are so advanced that they do not regret missing limbs. Despite the achievements of the last decades, there is still a long way to go and requires a drastic social change. “Even today the disabled person is considered as a permanent patient when instead his independence represents an added value for the whole society. An example? When placed in a position to work, the disabled person produces income instead of receiving a disability allowance. The gain is not only of an economic nature but also in terms of human dignity “underlines Cimmino.
The Sicilian stage of this swimming tour of Italy coincides with the “30 miles to Ustica”, part of the Ustica Blue Days: three days of events and dialogues to bring the theme of “augmented” sustainability to the heart of the Mediterranean. in an environmental sense, but as a broader concept of inclusiveness and enhancement of diversity. Sport becomes one of the pillars of the event and represents one of the most immediate and powerful languages to convey sustainability in rights. As already expressed in the Agenda for Sustainable Development prepared by the United Nations, any form of progress cannot ignore the founding values of a civil society such as inclusion, equal opportunities, the enhancement of diversity and the abolition of all barrier, physical and moral. Universal values that should push us to question our certainties. “If I preclude a person from going to the cinema or to a restaurant, the disability probably lies in the society and not in the individual. It should be in everyone’s interest to try to make them able-bodied” smiles Cimmino.
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