When Isabel Bonello blows out her birthday cake’s candles tomorrow her wish will already have come true. As she turns 24, she will also be celebrating her first day at work.

“I’m happy, excited and looking forward to it because it’s my birthday. And my wish came true. I wanted to work there,” she says as the excitement forces her to gasp for air between sentences.

Ms Bonello’s face beams with joy as she thinks ahead to sharing her birthday cake with her new colleagues at the National Commission Persons with Disability.

She speaks with a sense of humble pride because she has been preparing for this day for a long, long time.

With the support of people who believed in her, she fought her way through society-imposed barriers that would have meant spending her days at a resource centre for disabled people rather than venturing out into the working world.

They laughed at me, they tried to make fun of me

She suffers from an intellectual disability caused by dopa-responsive dystonia. This is a broad term used to describe forms of the condition that respond to a medication which is a synthetic form of a brain chemical called dopamine. Dystonia is a movement disorder that causes the muscles to contract and spasm involuntarily.

Ms Bonello recalls how she could not walk properly until she was about nine years old. She attended lots of therapy sessions to be able to move her legs.

“When I started walking the children in my class loved me. When I could not walk they used to wheel me in a sort of pushchair,” she says.

Ms Bonello went to a mainstream government school where she had a facilitator, which she quickly points out “nowadays are called LSAs”.

Her LSA – or learning support assistant – loved giving her little gifts like pencils and colours when she got a sum right or spelt a word correctly. Her mother did not like it, she smiles, adding that she did not want her to expect a gift every time she succeeded at something.

Ms Bonello was happy at school in the early years, but things did not remain so rosy. Between Year 4 and Form 5 she was bullied.

“They laughed at me, they tried to make fun of me. They picked on me,” she says adding: “I always stayed alone”.

Once she asked a group of girls if she could be their friend. “They were not disabled people. I asked them if I could stay next to them. They said they did not want disabled people with them. I had to stay with disabled people then… They pushed me aside,” she recalls.

When Form 5 was over she did not sit for any O levels – no one mentioned them as an option. The assumption was that she would go to the Wardija young adults’ resource centre for disabled people – which she did.

But once there, she became active in a KNPD committee for intellectually disabled people through which she met executive director Anne-Marie Callus and other members of the commission.

They encouraged her to attend the Malta College of Arts Science and Technology and follow the two-year Pathway to Independent Living Programme for people with disabilities. But she had a problem – she was scared of dogs. She was scared to venture alone into the streets, where she might come face to face with strays.

So her father got her a puppy, Jacksy, and he helped her overcome the fear that was hindering her from her next step forward.

Now, there was nothing stopping her. So, when she turned 20, she started attending MCAST with the help of a support worker.

During the Pathway course she learnt basic subjects like maths, English and Maltese and daily living skills – cooking, cleaning, handling money and catching buses.

In her final year she did a work placement at the KNPD. She was tasked with helping out with secretarial work such as filing, paper shredding, writing addresses on envelopes and making photocopies. She admits that she found certain tasks daunting at first but, with the support of her colleagues and her own perseverance, she realised she could do it.

“They were a bit difficult. I used to ask once, three times, and up to six times how to do something, but when you understand you can do it,” she says adding that she fell in love with the idea of working at the commission.

After the Pathway course she started a basic computers course also at MCAST and is now in her second year.

Meanwhile, she became a committee member of the Grupp Flimkien Naslu, a non-governmental organisation of youth with learning difficulties.

Then she heard about the vacancy at KNPD and was encouraged to apply. So, after preparing herself for the job interview, she decided to give it a shot.

Then, a few weeks ago, Ms Callus from KNPD phoned her on her mobile phone. She remembers all the details.

“My mother told me that my mobile was ringing and that there was the name of Anne-Marie on it. I thought: What could she want?

“I picked up and Anne-Marie said: ‘Hello’. I told her: ‘All right?’ She said: ‘Yes. How do you think you did during the interview?’ I told her I thought I did well.

“Then she said: ‘What if I had to tell you that you will start working with us? How would you take it?’ I told her: ‘Is this true?’,” she says as the pitch of her voice escalated in excitement.

“I told her I would start because opportunities should be taken. When she told me I start on November 4 I told her it’s my birthday.

“God is really good,” she grins.

Isabel’s wish list

Isabel has wanted to find a job but, more than ever, she wants to see other people with intellectual disabilities given opportunities.

“Disabled people wish to find employment to be independent, we want to be trusted by our parents,” she says. She would like to see more independent living centres for people with intellectual disabilities and more assisted living apartments available for them so that their parents have peace of mind.

“Homes are good but there will be older people and people with worse disabilities. This is not what we want and need,” she says.

The Sunday Times of Malta is telling the stories of people with various disabilities who are overcoming societal barriers. These monthly articles are not aimed at depicting these people as “super heroes” but at helping society out there understand the needs and concerns of the 34,600 disabled people in Malta, and Gozo, who are often hindered by lack of accessibility and understanding. Anyone who has a story to share can contact ccalleja@timesofmalta.com.