This paper focuses on the latter by analysing the role and functions of CSOs active in the field of disability, as well as peoples’ attitudes and behaviours towards disabled people by means of an individual-based survey run in late 2016 comparing two countries, Italy and the United Kingdom. Both countries have addressed the economic and financial crisis with austerity policies, in the name of public deficit containment. In both countries civil society organisations and citizens-based initiatives have provided answers to unmet needs towards keeping ‘sustainable’ social solidarity alive. Such initiatives are now reaching a critical phase though: they struggle to maintain their capacities in a context in which public resources are still locked, while they strive to have their work recognized for what it is: an essential contribution to people well-being.
The paper relies on data emanating from an EU (Horizon 2020) funded project investigating transnational solidarity across eight European countries (www.transsol.eu).
