NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION

Nonprofit Organization and Children Who Are Physically and Mentally Challenged

Nonprofit Organization and Children Who Are Physically and Mentally Challenged

The perception of people with impairments or disabilities started with neglecting them or even worse, to proscribe them. In particularly in the nineteenth century the attitude to physically or mental disabled changed by new knowledge and ideologies. In the Netherlands it became popular to build big institutions for all kind of people with certain disabilities or social problems. Until now the Netherlands are highly institutionalised, in particularly in the field of mentally challenged. Till about the sixties in the twentieth century protection was the basic approach.

Far away from the 'dangerous' society, people with serious mental, emotional or social problems were cared in isolated institutions. It was even thought and taught that the best thing was to reduce as much as possible the relationships with the family members. In the sixties and seventies a revolution took place in the care for disabled people. Normalisation became the new paradigm. Normalisation refers to the idea that challenged people should be seen and treated as normal people. They maybe need support to participate in society but they definitely should not be isolated and conceived as 'different', let alone inferior, human beings The concept of citizen was the next paradigm, emphasizing equal opportunities and human and social rights.

Behind the normalisation idea and the concept of citizenship we find a sensitive debate about the impact of normalisation and citizenship. On the one hand normalisation refers to a certain standard about normality. People with certain disabilities should act and be able to act as normal as possible. On the other hand normalisation can be seen as respecting differences, associated with the concept of diversity. Diversity refers to uniqueness of each person and the right to be in ...