Sport has the potential to improve our individual wellbeing as well as to strengthen our communities. However, until now, disabled people have tended to be denied the opportunity to actively participate in sporting activities. Hopefully, as more countries ratify the United Nations’ Convention Rights Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)*, disabled people around the world will have equal opportunities to participate in different sports, in line with Article 30 of the Convention. However, implementing the CRPD and Article 30 requires that all of us work together to make inclusive sport a reality.

I had the chance to think about the value of sport after attending a meeting organised by KNPD between Parliamentary Secretary for Sport Dr Stefan Buontempo and a number of disabled people and local NGOs that organise inclusive sport activities. In this article, I would like to share my thoughts on the points raised by the participants as a disabled person not active in sport.

The value of inclusive sport

Given our limited resources as a country, making sport inclusive to all requires a fair amount of financial and human resources. In addition, if we want sport to be truly inclusive, we must first ensure that sport venues are physically accessible to all. It is also important that sport organisations share their venues with other organisations, thus making best use of the limited resources of our small country.

The fact is that for disabled people to make use of sport facilities, these must be accessible to be truly inclusive. Having said that, making sport inclusive is a process that should start from an early age. Since the coming into force of the Equal Opportunities Act (Cap. 413)** in 2000, we may have progressed in many areas, but access to sport is one hurdle we still need to overcome.

Indeed, participants at the meeting noted that in physical education (PE) lessons in mainstream schools, disabled students are often left out altogether. Participants said that there were two main reasons why this happened. Firstly, the PE teacher did not know how to include disabled children with certain impairments in the lesson. Secondly, there was no adapted sport equipment that the child could use during PE. Unfortunately, participants noted that parents themselves might not know what their children can achieve with the proper support with the result they tend to over-protect their children and instruct the school to excuse their child from the PE lesson. While one can understand the parents’ concerns for their child, it’s a fact that, for many children, PE lessons offer children an informal way to learn how to play with other children different to them.

Even if, as a disabled boy I had the full support of my parents but no real interest in sport, I often felt left out from this lesson, as there were only a few activities where I could keep up with my peers. If it hadn’t been for the fact there were other (non-disabled) boys in my class who couldn’t keep up with the others for other reasons, PE would have been more isolating. In this sense, while sport and exercise are important values to teach in PE, I believe that this lesson should strive to be more inclusive by offering different types of exercise and sport where the emphasis is on cooperation and participation. These are two values that provide the chance for children who might have avoided each other during the break to learn about one another and how to work as a team.  

No sport after school

We have already seen how inclusive education needs to develop better ways to include disabled children in PE lessons. However, what are the current sport opportunities for disabled adults who wish to develop their athletic skills and for disabled children who want to practise a sport after school hours?

Of course, it’s positive to learn that a number of NGOs in Malta, some of which were present at the meeting with Parliamentary Secretary Dr Buontempo, were supporting disabled people who wanted to develop their sporting skills by organising activities where disabled athletes could train and play their sport. However, participants noted that mainstream sport trainers often weren’t aware of how to relate to disabled people.

Moreover, it was also noted that while public sporting venues have become more physically accessible, participants who needed assistive equipment to make full use of the facility, such as a public swimming pool, for example, often discovered that no staff member knew how to use the equipment.

The need for cooperation

NGOs who provide sporting opportunities for disabled people also encounter problems. One issue raised by participants is that many times other NGOs working in the sector who share similar goals are reluctant to co-operate and organise joint events. This tendency that organisations want to hold their own activities without collaborating with others means that we often fail to make best use of our sparse resources and the limited funding available is invested in a small-scale event when a larger-scale joint event would have more impact and provide better opportunities for disabled people and sport.

I believe that because we don’t have much space where to practise sport, organisations that own sports venues should share their site with other organisations so that other athletes could play or practise their sport as well.

Unfortunately, participants noted that disabled people or local NGOs who wish to find an appropriate site to practise their sport might face additional barriers to do so. In fact, while many find problems identifying affordable venues, many venues were also inaccessible.

Besides, participants who wish to develop particular sports that required adapted equipment such as wheelchairs designed for use during wheelchair dancing noted that these wheelchairs are expensive and no facility exists for them to rent an adapted wheelchair for their sport sessions. 

Mainstreaming inclusive sport

Another point made by participants was that they feel disappointed that sports involving disabled athletes don’t yet feature in national sport events organised by the Maltese Council for Sport. At the same time, participants also feel that the local media provide little or no coverage to sport activities organised by disabled people and often tend to place more emphasis on the impairment of disabled athletes rather than acknowledge them as skilled athletes in their own right.

Conclusion

I’ve argued that while Malta has limited resources, if we truly want sport to be inclusive, all of us, disabled and non-disabled people need to support each other by sharing what is available. At the same time, disabled people should be supported and included in sport from an early age and, if they wish to pursue a sporting career, we need to provide them with the necessary support and equipment. Most importantly, it requires us to look at disabled people not only as potential athletes but also fans and supporters who wish to join in as spectators and to join fellow supporters at their club.

While disabled people still find themselves excluded from sport, I hope that with the adoption of the CRPD, Malta will change to a country where everyone has an equal chance to take part in sport if they wished to.

It’s only then that we can play on an equal playing field!

Gordon C. Cardona is Assistant Manager at the National Commission Persons with Disability (KNPD)

*The UN Convention Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in alternative formats and other languages can be read at: http://www.un.org/disabilities/

**More information about the National Commission Persons with Disabilities (KNPD) and its activities can be found at: http://knpd.org

This article forms part of a project carried out by KNPD entitled Inclusion, Participation, Accessibility: Cornerstones for Personal Fulfilment, which is supported by the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS (2007-2013).
For more information see: http://ec.europa.eu/progress