This month of May, a training, leisure and sport activity programme for disabled people in La Oliva has been started. It’s called «Deporte por todos» (sport for everybody)
«Sport must be accessible to everybody», and with this «motto» they have started the programme, promoted by La Oliva town hall. It’s based on the leisure and sport activities targeted to disabled people with the aim of improving these people’s lives, regarding physical fitness, social relations and self-concept.
The programme, presented as pioneer in Fuerteventura island, is based on sport as a meeting point for everyone, no matter what their individual circumstances might be. Inclusion is about boys and girls practising sport together, whether they are handicapped or not. That way they organised two training days for the staff of schools and municipal centres, aiming to get instructors able to integrate disabled people in their activities so that inclusion, little by little, be present in all their disciplines.
Last 12th and 13th May it was the first co-existence training, in which the children of families enrolled in the programme «Deporte por todos», disabled or not, and the instructors themselves could put into practice their acquired knowledge. The main activity of this first experience took place in «Escuela Naútica», where all the participants could learn and enjoy Kayak and Paddle Surf, among many other bonding dynamics which also were developed in «El Albergue de El Cohombrillo», chosen place for these days of co-existence.
To carry out this training, La Oliva Town hall had the cooperation of the association «Plan and Train», organization with years of experience in the inclusion of the disabled in winter sports, among many others, and whose delegation in Fuerteventura has also been developing a programme of sport adapted to the aquatic environment.
The person in charge of this entity on the island, Mariona Masdemont, considers that «coexistence is essential if we want to progress towards inclusion. During that weekend, children have been without their parents, just accompanied by instructors, siblings and cousins. The idea is to have all of them participating together so that the activity be really inclusive». «Sport and this kind of coexistence days», Masdemon points out, «allow improving social relations, self-confidence and their physical fitness in their future».
It’s a project in the long run, and this is why we must work step by step. The first thing they did months ago wast to meet the families to find out about their needs. Now they are on the second stage, which is the training of the staff regarding inclusion and adaptation in order to develop sports and other kinds of activities in which these families can take part.
The programme «Sport for everyone» has been included in the «Plan de Actuación Municipal del Área de Planificación Deportiva» (Municipal Action Plan of the Sport Council), with the aim of completing a sport offer including activities for the elderly as well, physical and sport activities for adults, sport events of the Summer and Sport campaign for the youngest, among many other activities like those offered via Municipal Sport Schools.
