Today around the world people and organisations are marking the day of people with a disability.

Yes there is an argument that every day is one where their rights and needs should be to the fore but the world is a busy place and so there is merit in sticking a label on the calendar and making people us all think.

Sometimes it is in the small changes that the greatest impacts can arise. It has become standard now for the exhortation to ‘please rise for the national anthem’ to be amended to ‘please rise, if you can.’ Small change, pause for thought at a moment where passions are rising.

Sport has played a significant part in the changing way in which we see difference.

The Special Olympic Games being hosted in Ireland in 2003 was a moment for those with an intellectual impairment to be seen, to be heard and to shout about what they could do rather than what they could not.

Ten years on that same moment of awareness landed for those with a physical impairment when the Paralympic Games in london caught the imagination like never before.

Sport at an elite level such as that of Ellen Keane or Jason Smyth, Roisín Ní Ríain or Katie George Dunlevy is not attainable for everyone that has to navigate a disability but the respect and understanding that they drive among the wider population is important and it is an obligation on sporting bodies and fans to afford that respect wherever they can and often when it looks too hard.

32 percent of people with a disability are now participating in some form of sport or physical activity but that number can and must go higher.

11 percent take part in personal exercise but that is half the number in the general population.

Sport Ireland has launched a Statement of Commitment and Action to advance and promote the inclusion of people with a disability in sport across the country.

It is recruiting for a Disability Lead to give a focus and a responsibility for action.

Inclusion Officers are at work in most of our local authorities, making sure that the voice of those with a disability is heard and that access is seen as a right not an add-on.

The point of a day like today is to give pause for thought. Why not take five minutes to think of some small way in each of our lives, that we can make a difference for those who have to travel a different path through life as most of us are lucky to do.

Whether it is personal or organisational, all are important. We can do better and we must do better to deliver a truly inclusive pathway for everyone to enjoy the benefits of sport and activity.

So what is your way of making a difference?

 

WHAT’S UP NEXT?

We will be attending the annual conference of Active Disability Ireland in Athlone this coming Thursday, hearing first hand about the ways in which Ireland is delivering in this key area.  

We were among the first organisations to sign the Sport Inclusion Disability Charter which is a simple guide on how we can do better and you can do so to with the charter details here. It is a simple five point reminder and the living prompt for us that we will never organise an event in a venue that is not fully accessible.

Watch out as well for the Special Olympics World Winter Games taking place in Italy next March and which we will be hearing plenty more about on these pages over the coming months.

 

 

 

 

The Sport for Business Membership comprises nearly 300 organisations, including all the leading sports and sponsors, as well as commercial and state agencies. 

Find out more about joining us today.