Inge Volleberg spoke at an event in the European Parliament on 25 March 2026. The event was organised to celebrate the World Down Syndrome Day. The event was about loneliness. Inge spoke alongside her sister Esther, who talked about her views and experiences.
This is what Inge wrote after the event:
Following Esther’s speech sharing her personal views, I linked the issues to our work at Inclusion Europe, specifically to the Inclusion Indicators and to our upcoming publications on the reality of young families.
I think all of the Inclusion Indicators are relevant to the topic of loneliness of people with intellectual disabilities. But I decided to focus on three that were mentioned by Esther:
🗣️ Right to decide
Esther is not the only one who cannot always make her own decisions.
29 European countries still allow the (partial) removal of legal capacity.
Only 4 countries fully respect the right to decide.
🎒 Education
There are still many children with intellectual disabilities segregated in special education schools, specifically in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Inclusive schools offer the support each student needs, and create an environment that welcomes and includes everyone despite their differences.
☕ Employment
Esther shared that she does not get paid for the work she does in a restaurant.
Less than 10% of the people with intellectual disabilities have a job on the open labour market and get paid a fair wage.
Young families
On the young families project, I added that not only are people with intellectual disabilities lonely, but their parents and siblings are lonely too.
👨👩👧👦 Parents experience mental health issues and social exclusion. They are all of a sudden dropped into this new reality of disability and obstacles. Their to-do list gets longer and longer, while their world gets smaller and smaller.
👩❤️👩 Siblings get less attention and time from their parents, and often have extra responsibilities. But above all, they make themselves smaller and smaller and try to deal with everything by themselves, which they cannot, they should not have to, they are children.
There is still a lot left to do to fight loneliness for people with intellectual disabilities and their family members.
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