Ir-Razzett Tal-Hbiberija is one of the first NGOs in Malta to get European Union funding for a new Information and Communication Technology (ICT) lab, which will be up and running by the end of the year.

The lab, which is costing the organisation €45,000, is a first step towards "trying to develop the physical disability aspect of our charity work and at the same time consolidate all the other services Ir-Razzett offers by getting proper expertise in and maintaining the standard of service for everything else," Nathan Farrugia, CEO of Ir-Razzett tal-Hbiberija, exclusively told The Sunday Times last week.

Mr Farrugia, who has been in contact with the UK charity Aspire, which caters for people with spinal injuries, for the last three years, is embarking on a project which will take about a year and a half to complete.

"One of the main reasons for communicating with this productive and interesting organisation in the UK was because all our investment was always geared towards people with intellectual disabilities, primarily children," Mr Farrugia said.

Ir-Razzett's strategies are devised on the country's needs, and as CEO and board member Mr Farrugia steered the organisation towards providing leisure education for children since "what they were mostly getting from schools and institutions was an academic side to learning".

Mr Farrugia, who is leaving Malta at the end of this month to relocate with his family in London, will be returning to Malta on a regular basis, to discuss progress and analyse what's going on at Ir-Razzett.

"I would be getting my daily e-mails through my personal assistant and the accounts and finance departments to make sure that operations are running smoothly. But we have perfectly capable operations, fund-raising and service delivery teams, who will see to the day-to-day running of Ir-Razzett," he said.

"However, my responsibilities today are very different to four years ago. They are merely focusing on direction and strategy and not on the day-to-day running of the organisation. I can do that from a distance and through regular meetings with the board."

Mr Farrugia has been looking at what's being done with physical disability overseas and wants to develop the issue here. Doing it first hand on such a large scale, the learning process he will get from it will be of tremendous value for Ir-Razzett and Malta.

"The issues of physical disability in Malta weren't being addressed in the best way. Therefore, we had to shift from focusing on intellectual disability and start looking at providing better services for people with physical disability."

What do these people need? What are the issues?

These issues were addressed to a certain extent by Government and the National Commission Persons with Disability (KNPD), but "there are many others that are not being given enough effort".

"Ir-Razzett's strengths could be to try and promote issues, such as accessibility through ICT, employment, training and development for people with physical disabilities, and then continue with our paradigm of using leisure as a form of therapy, also with sporting events. On a sporting level, our ultimate aim is to work our way to London Paralympics 2012," Mr Farrugia said.

Aspire UK is one of the best to look at because it is a medium-sized organisation focused on helping persons with physical disabilities "in the same way we at Ir-Razzett want to".

"Ir-Razzett's set-up for intellectual disability commands most of our therapists. So any investment in new staff will be on the physical disability department," Mr Farrugia added.

This department has a new manager, an occupational therapist with a wealth of experience, having worked in Italy for eight years with people with spinal injuries.

UK Aspire, which presently has one site in London but has developed two or three discussions with other sites and are laying the project down, is planning to expand to 11 sites all over the UK.

The plan is for Mr Farrugia to go there and develop these 11 sites for a service provision, primarily through ICT, adaptive housing (training houses with specialised equipment accessible to people with physical disabilities, who could then take the equipment back home after a six-week to a three-month stay) - and training suites within the community.

"Aspire has a number of other services which relate to daily living equipment. So my remit is to head this project expansion and at the same time head all the services they provide within this concept of reintegration into society of people with physical disabilities.The aim is to bring this learning process to Malta and work on developing such projects here," Mr Farrugia said.

"The aim of Aspire, as is that of Ir-Razzett, is to provide support services and training to level the 'ability' playing field, as it were. In this way, disability is addressed in the social model, providing equal opportunities, rather than focusing on impairment or what a person 'cannot' do."

"It will be a challenge to develop such a large-scale expansion project, stretching across the whole of the UK with a population of 60 million. Ir-Razzett has been a success story, thanks to the support of the Maltese community. I hope to be able to help Aspire with the same results.

"Ultimately, it's a great learning process that will generate a level of practicable knowledge exchange that Malta can benefit from. We have already agreed to exchange staff between organisations, in order to invest in this relationship."

Ir-Razzett tal-Hbiberija, which has always been a service-driven organisation, is currently discussing how it could use ICT as part of a whole scheme of improving the social inclusion of people with physical disabilities.

"We've started with ICT. Other issues include employment, training, education and accessibility. Our EU funded project was loosely designed on the one at Aspire, adding equipment and resources to cater for the variety of disability Razzett caters for."

Ir-Razzett has also just signed an agreement with MCAST to provide services for students with physical disabilities, initially with ICT, and eventually with adaptive wheelchairs, adaptive desks, and house and classroom adaptations, to make sure it is truly an inclusive setting.

Mr Farrugia, who will start working on his new project on October 9, will be based in London.

Mark Sultana, recently appointed general manager, will be acting on his behalf.

"It's important to point out that Ir-Razzett is continuously developing new services to address the needs of the community, but we cannot do this without public and corporate support. While thanking everyone who contributed to our success so far, it is important that this support continues, to ensure that the people we help get the services they need," Mr Farrugia concluded.