The Role of Care-Givers in the Disabled People's Movement: A Study of Group Gorilla in the Osaka Green Grass Association

SADATO Kuniko
Abstract:
The Osaka Green Grass Association, organized in 1973, started a movement for the freedom and
independence of disabled people. One of the group's aims was to empower severely disabled people who cannot
live without care to attain autonomous lives.

Though the movement was primarily for disabled people, the non-disabled attendants who provided care
played an important role, too. In fact, although there were no public care systems in the 1970s, support by nondisabled
attendants, despite the constant shortage of attendants, produced many independent disabled people.
A group of these caregivers was called Gorilla, because these attendants were expected to use their arms and
legs for care without using their brains. Moreover, as the movement respected the independence of disabled
people, non-disabled people were expected not to interfere in the movement.

In 2004 and in 2005, I interviewed two non-disabled attendants who were involved in the movement as
gorillas in the 1970s. Based on these interviews, in this paper, I describe the activities and thoughts of the two
care-givers. I also examine the movement of the Osaka Green Grass Association, and I consider how care-givers
were involved in the movement from a non-disabled person's point of view.

Keywords: 1970s, disabled people's movement, independence of severely disabled people, care-giver, Group Gorilla