By IPS Correspondents
BERLIN, Feb 6 2008 (IPS)

"Living as a couple is the best dream come true," Volker Lauer told IPS, referring to his five-year relationship with Monika, who he met through a unique German dating agency for the disabled.

Monika and Volker Credit: Schatzkiste, Hamburg

The dating service, Schatzkiste Partnervermittlung, is a world pioneer. It was founded in 1998 by a psychologist who specialises in sexuality, Bernd Zemella, in the northern German city of Hamburg.

"The idea was born as a result of one specific case involving a patient who wanted to find a girlfriend. But then it grew and grew, and we realised the enormous need for something like this," Zemella told IPS.

The agency has set up a database with the profiles of physically or mentally disabled people looking for a life partner. It is administered with the utmost discretion by Zemella, who acts as a middleman, matching up people who seem to share common tastes, interests and goals.

If the two people he matches are interested in getting together, they have a first date in the agency itself, in which Zemella is present. The rest is up to them.

"That day was really nice, but I was also nervous, because it was new for me," Monika told IPS.

Volker, proud of his memory in this case, said "It was 11/11. I can remember it easily because that’s my birthday."

More than 50 couples have been brought together thanks to Schatzkiste Partnervermittlung, which is run by a handful of health professionals and volunteers.

The dating service, which is completely free of charge for its beneficiaries, operates under the umbrella of the Alsterdorf Foundation, run by a local protestant church.

"It is not good for people to be alone. And that also goes for people with disabilities!" says the dating agency’s web site.

The initiative promotes respect for the right of people with disabilities to have a partner and to experience and develop their sexuality. It also provides seminars and workshops on health, prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, birth control, and practical questions – like how to unhook a partner’s bra.

"Sex is a taboo subject," said Zemella. "What I try to do in the seminars is to fight that, so people can talk about it like any other physical question, such as eating or sleeping."

"But the most important thing for most of them is to feel that they are taken seriously when it comes to the issue of sexuality," he added.

In the database, men outnumber women by a ratio of three to one, which the organisers attribute to parents’ fears that their daughters will get pregnant.

So far, however, after a decade of "match-making" by the agency, none of the couples brought together have had children.

More than 500 people are currently listed in the Schatzkiste Partnervermittlung’s Hamburg database. But the initiative has been replicated in 19 other German cities, and they all share an expanded list of names.

In Germany, a country of 82 million, an estimated eight million people – or 10 percent of the population – have some kind of disability.

One of them, Rosemarie, who is both mentally and physically disabled, described in her Schatzkiste Partnervermittlung file the characteristics that her Prince Charming should possess: "no beard, nice-looking, kind and not very tall."

Today, the 49-year-old woman better known as Rosi spends her days with her partner – who is not very tall, and has a bushy moustache, but no beard.

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