In recent days, Malta had the privilege of hosting 400 athletes from 37 countries for the Special Olympics European Swimming Open 2026, the first time our country has hosted this event. The event also highlighted the important work of Special Olympics Malta, under the presidency of Dr Lydia Abela, in creating opportunities through sport.

Beyond the competition and the medals, there is a message worth carrying with us. When people are given genuine opportunities, an enabling environment and the support they need, we stop defining them by perceived limitations and start recognising their abilities.

That is, ultimately, what inclusion should be about.

Our understanding of disability has evolved considerably. Today, we know that disability cannot be understood only in terms of a person's condition. Often, the physical, social or attitudinal barriers around that person restrict participation.

A step can be a barrier. Inaccessible information can be a barrier. So can a school, workplace or service that is not designed to accommodate different realities. Sometimes, however, the greatest barrier is simply an assumption about what somebody can or cannot do.

This matters because inclusion is not about asking persons with disabilities to adapt to society constantly. It is also about society recognising the barriers around us being willing to remove them.

For me, this conversation also has a personal dimension. I am the parent of a child with a disability. That experience has reinforced one conviction above all: we still need a deeper understanding of disability and of the everyday realities experienced by persons with disabilities and their families.

I say this not to invite sympathy. Quite the opposite.

Awareness should never be about teaching society to feel sorry for persons with disabilities or their families. It should challenge assumptions. It should help us understand different realities and recognise that disability does not diminish a person's aspirations, choices, potential or right to participate.

A family that includes a person with a disability does not need pity. It needs understanding. It needs genuinely accessible opportunities, services that respond to individual needs and policies designed around the realities of everyday life.

That is why the way we approach disability matters.

Over time, Malta has increasingly moved from an approach centred predominantly on care towards one grounded in rights, dignity, autonomy and participation. This shift matters: support should not only respond to needs but also enable people to exercise choice and participate fully in society.

The move to explicitly recognise disability as a protected characteristic in Malta's Constitution is an important further step. It strengthens the constitutional recognition of equality and sends a clear message that disability rights are not an act of charity or compassion. They are a question of equality, justice and human dignity.

The Personal Autonomy Act carries that principle into people's lives by strengthening the recognition that persons with disabilities should, wherever possible, exercise greater choice, independence and control over decisions affecting them. The wider development of personal assistance and personal budgets is also relevant to this principle, because autonomy must be supported through practical arrangements, not only recognised in law.

Rights, however, must also be felt in everyday life.

Government has continued investing in practical support. The Disability Child Allowance, which is paid in addition to Children's Allowance, increased to €35 a week, more than double the rate paid in 2013. The Carer's Grant provides the equivalent of half the net minimum wage or €5,369 annually to eligible parents who are not in employment in order to care for a child with a qualifying severe disability. This is pledged to double over this legislature. Budget 2026 also increased support for eligible therapy expenses of up to €1,000 yearly and extended eligibility to age 23.

Investment has also continued in therapy, respite, community services and initiatives supporting greater independence.

These measures matter. But recognising progress also means having the confidence to improve the way support is delivered. Sometimes the next step is not another scheme or another allowance, but making an existing measure work better for the people it was created to serve.

The Housing Authority's Sens Ability Scheme is a good example of how inclusion can move beyond accessibility and create a genuine sense of belonging.

Introduced in 2019, it provides up to €6,000, without a means test, to create and equip a sensory room based on needs assessed by an occupational therapist.

It is a positive scheme. But I believe we should now take it a step further.

Once the need has been professionally assessed and assistance approved, we should explore a mechanism for the Housing Authority to provide that financial support from the beginning, rather than requiring the family to pay first and receive assistance afterwards.

This could involve direct payment to approved suppliers, staged payments or another model with the necessary safeguards. The precise mechanism deserves careful consideration, but the principle should be clear. Where the State has already recognised the need and approved the assistance, we should ensure that having to cover the cost upfront does not become a barrier to accessing support that has already been approved.

Good social policy is not only about how much we invest. It is also about when support reaches people, how they access it and whether it responds to their lived reality.

And this principle should encourage us to look at other schemes too: not only asking whether assistance exists, but whether the way it is delivered makes sense to the person who needs it.

Government, of course, cannot create an inclusive society on its own.

Legislation can prohibit discrimination.

Investment can remove barriers.

Services can provide essential support.

But inclusion also begins in our families and schools, when children grow up together and learn that difference does not reduce another person's worth. From there, it should become part of how we live together, in our workplaces, in sport and culture, and across our communities.

That is the message we should carry forward from the Special Olympics athletes we recently welcomed to Malta.

The lesson is not that persons with disabilities should be celebrated for what they achieve 'despite' disability. It is that people should have genuine opportunities to develop their abilities and participate on an equal basis.

Malta has travelled a considerable distance. We should be proud of the rights strengthened, the investment made and the services developed. But progress should also make us more attentive to what remains to be done.

We must continue listening, above all, to persons with disabilities themselves and to the families who share their everyday realities. We should protect what works, improve what can work better, and never be afraid to recognise a barrier simply because we did not intend to create it.

Because behind every law, every allowance, every service and every policy there is a person.  A person who does not want to be defined by a condition, reduced to a statistic or seen only through the lens of disability.

A person who wants what every one of us wants: to be seen, to be respected, to have choices, to have opportunities and to belong.

And that must remain the measure of our progress.

Romilda Zarb is a Labour MP