INCLUSIVE SWIMMING COMPETITION- BEYOND HANDICAPS

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According to UN, the unique ability of sports to transcend linguistic, cultural and social barriers makes it an excellent platform for strategies of inclusion and adaptation. Furthermore, the universal popularity of sport and its physical, social and economic development benefits make it an ideal tool for fostering the inclusion and well-being of persons with disabilities. Regarding this reality, “Inclusive Swimming Competitions- Beyond Handicaps” project aims to encourage the sport clubs to bring the physically disabled kids and non-disabled kids together in the pool and encourage physically disabled kids being active and included in their social life with swimming activities by coming together and being pairs with their non-disabled peers in the pool; and to increase both disabled and non-disabled kids’ physical activeness, which will provide an environment where children can interact with each other; AND at the end, to create a new competition type including both disabled and non-disabled kids as pair in sport sector. We focused on the swimming activities since pool will provide an equal atmosphere for both groups aged 10-14 in order to increase the social inclusion of the disabled kids and to develop an understanding of the non-disabled kids to their disabled peers by making them pair in the pool to carry out the activities together, also to encourage them their physical activeness. Firstly, a detailed “Inclusive Swimming Competition Program” will be developed by the university and federation for sport clubs and coaches to implement with physically disabled and non-disabled kids.Then, all these pair activities will be implemented by the disabled and non-disabled pairs in the pool in order to prepare them a competition between their pair groups. At the end of the activities, there will be local and international competition as pairs of disabled and non-disabled kids, which will be increase an awareness on what a child can do instead of cannot do.