Ida Collu, the first Sardinian president of the ENS, the National Association for the Deaf and Dumb, passed away in Verona a few days ago. She was 76. This is how Franco Olla, the longtime Sardinian president of the ENS, remembered her.

Ida Collu, the Sardinian president of the ENS, has passed away. Ida Collu, well known as the first and only female president of the National Association of the Deaf, passed away last Thursday in Verona. Born in Carbonia, she grew up in Cagliari, at the Suor Nicoli Institute, where she received her first education. She then moved to Rome, where she earned her teacher's diploma. She continued her studies at the University of Cagliari, Faculty of Education, but never earned a degree, which she did, however, earn in May of this year 2025.

During her many years of intense political and associative activity, she held many important positions: provincial councilor of the Cagliari section of the ENS, then national councilor of the ENS, working in the Language and Communication department. Then, after marrying a deaf man from Verona, she joined the Provincial Labor Commission of Verona and became a member of the Province of Verona, fighting for equal opportunities. She then became a city councilor of Verona.

From 1995, he became national president of the National Institute for the Deaf and Dumb for sixteen years, during which he fought numerous battles for the civil and moral rights of the deaf, finally changing the term "deaf-mute" to simply "sordo" in the Republic of Italy, and working both for the state granting of communication allowances for low-income deaf people, for the inclusion of support teachers expert in sign language, and for the assignment of communication assistants specialized in sign language for deaf students.

ENS is no longer the "National Organization for the Deaf and Dumb"... it's the "National Organization for the Deaf." For years, it was vice president of FAND, the association of Italian disabled people's associations.

For 50 years, she has been an activist for the human rights of people with disabilities, particularly deaf people, especially for the legislative recognition of sign language, which has long been recognized in many parts of the world but not yet in Italy; for the inclusion of deaf students in sign language in schools; and for the full accessibility of RAI to deaf citizens through sign language and RAI Teletext, which is entirely in written form.