Dear Bart -
Congratulations for getting your amazing school initiative up on changemakers. (with a cool video no less) I had heard about Paralympic School Day but only recently got to see the materials available to teachers.
I find the kits that you give out are really informative and have fun exercises to help children understand what it is like to be a parlaympic athlete. I especially liked the way children were encouraged to actually do the sport - with blindfolds or having one of their limbs bound to their body to see what special challenges the paralympic disciplines pose. YOu guys even have a game to explain the classification system! respect.
I would like to know how schools can take part?
How would a school get access to these resources?
Do you also offer modules or smaller bits if a PE teacher wanted to do just one or two exercises?
How could the other changemakers on this site get access to do things in their existing sport programmes?
All the best from Berlin
HC
Boxgirls Roadwork
running and rolling all over the city...
Thanks for the kind words. The video was shot during a Paralympic School Day we organized in Bad Honnef, Germany in October 2006. I think it gives a nice overview of how we try to present the Paralympic Movement to school children in relatively simple and (as we think) successful way.
The resource kit was created to provide schools, teachers, coaches, etc. with ideas, activities and advice on how to organize a Paralympic School Day. Currently the kit only exists in English language, but we are looking into way and neans to translate the materials in other languagues, e.g. French, Spanish, etc.
We pretty much would like to encourage anybody who is interested in the Paralympic School Day to contact us and see how the programme could be implemented in their respective environment. The Paralympic School Day is a very flexible programme that can be adapted to various situations. The kit offers quite a scope of different activities that can be organized in all kind of settings. Basically, it's up to the organizer to pick & choose the activities which they see fit. Our biggest challenge is now, as mentioned above, is to produce the kit in other languages and promote it widely.
I forgot...check out the entry from MYSA in Nairobi. They do amazing work in the slums of Nairobi and have just kicked off a sports project for people with disabilities...there must be a lot of space to collaborate there.
Congratulations on a unique initiative. I spent some time working with various NGOs around India. There is a residential school for 500+ physically challenged children in the desert region of Rajasthan that has a special programme called IMAGE that is also using sports to help integrate able and disabled bodied children. Please have a look at the website http://www.sksn.org/. I can directly connect you to the organisation if you are interested.
Thank you for your comments and the information about the IMAGE programme. Sounds very interesting, I will take a close look at their website. I'll be in touch with you.
this looks like an amazing project. From the video I got the impression that besides encouraging kids to put themselves into the place of disabled athletes you also bring actual paralympic athletes to schools for non-disabled kids. Is that right? If so, I think this is a great way of letting them see, first-hand, how paralympic athletes are not just people who made it "despite their disability", but how they do amazing things by any standard.
Thank you for your message and kind comments. Yes, you are absolutely right. Having athletes, regardless of their performance level, taking part in the Paralympic School Day has shown to be very inspirational, both for the kids and the athletes. It definitely has a huge impact on the children when they have the chance to be face-to-face with these athletes and experience their great achievements. I have to say that we are lucky that so many athletes are happy, if not eager, to take part in one or more Paralympic School Days.
During our study (Erasmus Mundus Master in Adaped Physical Activity) Yves Vanlandewijck has told us a lot about the Paralympic School Day so we were already enthusiastic about this initiative. We believe your approach is very effective since many researchers suggested that education about, and experience with mentally and physically challenged, positively affect the attitudes of persons toward individuals with disabilities. Therefore, we also use education and the raising of awareness as a way to improve the attitudes of the communities in the slums of Nairobi. As Cameron already suggested, it might be useful to discuss a possible collaboration to reach our common goal, especially since we are working together with the Kenya National Paralympic Committee.
You mentioned in the presentation of the project that the PSD aims to create an open-minded environment for the future and therefore targets on children. However, in our view it is also necessary to raise awareness among the members of the society in where people with disabilities face discrimination. Therefore, we were wondering if the PSD aims to also indirectly reach the parents or if you intend to start information days within the communities in order to raise awareness among adults. Besides, we would like to know more about the method you have used to evaluate and prove the effectiveness of the Paralympic School Days.
The Paralympic School Day (PSD) is not only a unique tool to prevent discrimination and improve societal inclusion through raising awareness and understanding of persons with a disability, but also a fantastic educational opportunity to our global society to learn about each other.
Unfortunately, the number of people with disabilities is constantly growing; therefore, we should try to implement all kinds of tools to spread social justice and awareness. I strongly believe that the PSD is a perfect approach worth supporting and studying.
As a scholar, I am extremely interested in having such events in all six inhabited continents.
Bart, good job and good luck with this project!
- Leszek Sibilski, Ph.D.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC
The Paralympic School Day looks like an amazing program and I am excited to learn more through your resource kits and exercises for children. Your program is something that we could introduce into our curriculum by the volunteers and teachers in our partnering schools. With our H4H programs growing in countries like Mozambique who have so many people afflicted by land mines, it would invaluable for us to learn how to include children more successfully and to battle the discrimination they face.
Although we have helped some wheelchair basketball teams in Africa with coaching, uniforms and chairs we have much to learn about dealing with children who have even more challenges. We have thrown amazing fun-raisers with a wheelchair team in the US who bring extra chairs to play against a team of teachers and athletes who have never played the sport. It is an educative, fun and humbling experience for all. Keep up the great work and look forward to further discussion about collaborating in the future.
Thank you for posting the Paralympic School Day program on changemakers. What a terrific way to share this initiative! The program has the ability to alter how we view differences in ourselves and others. Providing this curriculum to young people will enhance their lives immeasurably. I am looking forward to working with you to promote the Paralympic School Day program throughout the world.
This intiative looks like a fantastic way to create positive change in awareness and acceptance of people with a disability around the world and also to showcase the sporting abilities of Paralympic athletes.
I'm interested to know how your organisation is planning to spread the educational tool internationally.
You mentioned that the IPC is keen to translate the resource kits into other languages. What type of barriers, besides language, do you anticipate in promoting and disseminating the Paralympic School Day initiative to schools across the globe?
Experiential learning is such a crucial element for raising awareness and fostering attitudinal change, which is an element that this innovation captures very well.
I wish you every success with the expansion of the PSD project.
Best regards,
Jackie Lauff
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
fight homeless, poverty and malaria using power soccer (sports)for social change
in our communities in health, Educational and art/crafts project in grassroot identifying talents form vulneble children and youths.
l have started project with children who are disabled in our programmes.
fight homeless, poverty and malaria using power soccer (sports)for social change
in our communities in health, Educational and art/crafts project in grassroot identifying talents form vulneble children and youths
I am right now browsing my favorite projects on cm, asking them about their view on Theory of Change, since cameron addressed that over at Boxgirls, and nailed a lot of what was going through my head about this:
Hello Bart
Thinking about this programme I was wondering how you might adapt it so that it is geared towards engaging more kids with disabilities as compared to haveing "able bodied" kids experience (metaphorically) what it would be like to be disabled. Do you host many mixed PSDs? Do you have some sort of min Paralympic Games or the like for kids with disabilities to try out paralympic disciplines?
As someone working in inclusive education I am often confronted on how difficult it can be to make events truly inclusive. I would love to hear some of your ideas on this.
best from Berlin
hc
Heather Cameron
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
Comments
Dear Bart -
Congratulations for getting your amazing school initiative up on changemakers. (with a cool video no less) I had heard about Paralympic School Day but only recently got to see the materials available to teachers.
I find the kits that you give out are really informative and have fun exercises to help children understand what it is like to be a parlaympic athlete. I especially liked the way children were encouraged to actually do the sport - with blindfolds or having one of their limbs bound to their body to see what special challenges the paralympic disciplines pose. YOu guys even have a game to explain the classification system! respect.
I would like to know how schools can take part?
How would a school get access to these resources?
Do you also offer modules or smaller bits if a PE teacher wanted to do just one or two exercises?
How could the other changemakers on this site get access to do things in their existing sport programmes?
All the best from Berlin
HC
Boxgirls Roadwork
running and rolling all over the city...
Dear Heather,
Thanks for the kind words. The video was shot during a Paralympic School Day we organized in Bad Honnef, Germany in October 2006. I think it gives a nice overview of how we try to present the Paralympic Movement to school children in relatively simple and (as we think) successful way.
The resource kit was created to provide schools, teachers, coaches, etc. with ideas, activities and advice on how to organize a Paralympic School Day. Currently the kit only exists in English language, but we are looking into way and neans to translate the materials in other languagues, e.g. French, Spanish, etc.
We pretty much would like to encourage anybody who is interested in the Paralympic School Day to contact us and see how the programme could be implemented in their respective environment. The Paralympic School Day is a very flexible programme that can be adapted to various situations. The kit offers quite a scope of different activities that can be organized in all kind of settings. Basically, it's up to the organizer to pick & choose the activities which they see fit. Our biggest challenge is now, as mentioned above, is to produce the kit in other languages and promote it widely.
Best wishes,
Bart
I forgot...check out the entry from MYSA in Nairobi. They do amazing work in the slums of Nairobi and have just kicked off a sports project for people with disabilities...there must be a lot of space to collaborate there.
hc
Heather,
Thanks for the 'heads-up'. I will check out the project for sure!
Cheers,
Bart
Dear Bart,
Congratulations on a unique initiative. I spent some time working with various NGOs around India. There is a residential school for 500+ physically challenged children in the desert region of Rajasthan that has a special programme called IMAGE that is also using sports to help integrate able and disabled bodied children. Please have a look at the website http://www.sksn.org/. I can directly connect you to the organisation if you are interested.
Best
Dharmesh
Roopal Shah
www.Indicorps.org
Service for the Soul
Dear Dharmesh,
Thank you for your comments and the information about the IMAGE programme. Sounds very interesting, I will take a close look at their website. I'll be in touch with you.
Best wishes,
Bart
Dear Bart,
this looks like an amazing project. From the video I got the impression that besides encouraging kids to put themselves into the place of disabled athletes you also bring actual paralympic athletes to schools for non-disabled kids. Is that right? If so, I think this is a great way of letting them see, first-hand, how paralympic athletes are not just people who made it "despite their disability", but how they do amazing things by any standard.
-Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin
Dear Jasper,
Thank you for your message and kind comments. Yes, you are absolutely right. Having athletes, regardless of their performance level, taking part in the Paralympic School Day has shown to be very inspirational, both for the kids and the athletes. It definitely has a huge impact on the children when they have the chance to be face-to-face with these athletes and experience their great achievements. I have to say that we are lucky that so many athletes are happy, if not eager, to take part in one or more Paralympic School Days.
Kind regards,
Bart
Dear Bart,
During our study (Erasmus Mundus Master in Adaped Physical Activity) Yves Vanlandewijck has told us a lot about the Paralympic School Day so we were already enthusiastic about this initiative. We believe your approach is very effective since many researchers suggested that education about, and experience with mentally and physically challenged, positively affect the attitudes of persons toward individuals with disabilities. Therefore, we also use education and the raising of awareness as a way to improve the attitudes of the communities in the slums of Nairobi. As Cameron already suggested, it might be useful to discuss a possible collaboration to reach our common goal, especially since we are working together with the Kenya National Paralympic Committee.
You mentioned in the presentation of the project that the PSD aims to create an open-minded environment for the future and therefore targets on children. However, in our view it is also necessary to raise awareness among the members of the society in where people with disabilities face discrimination. Therefore, we were wondering if the PSD aims to also indirectly reach the parents or if you intend to start information days within the communities in order to raise awareness among adults. Besides, we would like to know more about the method you have used to evaluate and prove the effectiveness of the Paralympic School Days.
We are looking forward to hear from you.
Pierre and Steffi
Dear Bart,
The Paralympic School Day (PSD) is not only a unique tool to prevent discrimination and improve societal inclusion through raising awareness and understanding of persons with a disability, but also a fantastic educational opportunity to our global society to learn about each other.
Unfortunately, the number of people with disabilities is constantly growing; therefore, we should try to implement all kinds of tools to spread social justice and awareness. I strongly believe that the PSD is a perfect approach worth supporting and studying.
As a scholar, I am extremely interested in having such events in all six inhabited continents.
Bart, good job and good luck with this project!
- Leszek Sibilski, Ph.D.
The Catholic University of America
Washington, DC
The Paralympic School Day looks like an amazing program and I am excited to learn more through your resource kits and exercises for children. Your program is something that we could introduce into our curriculum by the volunteers and teachers in our partnering schools. With our H4H programs growing in countries like Mozambique who have so many people afflicted by land mines, it would invaluable for us to learn how to include children more successfully and to battle the discrimination they face.
Although we have helped some wheelchair basketball teams in Africa with coaching, uniforms and chairs we have much to learn about dealing with children who have even more challenges. We have thrown amazing fun-raisers with a wheelchair team in the US who bring extra chairs to play against a team of teachers and athletes who have never played the sport. It is an educative, fun and humbling experience for all. Keep up the great work and look forward to further discussion about collaborating in the future.
Best,
Mark
Mark Crandall
Hoops 4 Hope
hoops4hope@mac.com
www.hoopsafrica.org
Dear Bart,
Thank you for posting the Paralympic School Day program on changemakers. What a terrific way to share this initiative! The program has the ability to alter how we view differences in ourselves and others. Providing this curriculum to young people will enhance their lives immeasurably. I am looking forward to working with you to promote the Paralympic School Day program throughout the world.
Sincerely,
Ann Cody
Hi Bart,
This intiative looks like a fantastic way to create positive change in awareness and acceptance of people with a disability around the world and also to showcase the sporting abilities of Paralympic athletes.
I'm interested to know how your organisation is planning to spread the educational tool internationally.
You mentioned that the IPC is keen to translate the resource kits into other languages. What type of barriers, besides language, do you anticipate in promoting and disseminating the Paralympic School Day initiative to schools across the globe?
Experiential learning is such a crucial element for raising awareness and fostering attitudinal change, which is an element that this innovation captures very well.
I wish you every success with the expansion of the PSD project.
Best regards,
Jackie Lauff
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
fight homeless, poverty and malaria using power soccer (sports)for social change
in our communities in health, Educational and art/crafts project in grassroot identifying talents form vulneble children and youths.
l have started project with children who are disabled in our programmes.
fight homeless, poverty and malaria using power soccer (sports)for social change
in our communities in health, Educational and art/crafts project in grassroot identifying talents form vulneble children and youths
Hey Bart,
I am right now browsing my favorite projects on cm, asking them about their view on Theory of Change, since cameron addressed that over at Boxgirls, and nailed a lot of what was going through my head about this:
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/2279#comment-3571
I myself have posted some more thoughts on that along with some outside resources on TOC here at Al-Dersimspor:
http://changemakers.net/en-us/node/4193#comment-3574
Would love to hear your comments on that.
Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
Hello Bart
Thinking about this programme I was wondering how you might adapt it so that it is geared towards engaging more kids with disabilities as compared to haveing "able bodied" kids experience (metaphorically) what it would be like to be disabled. Do you host many mixed PSDs? Do you have some sort of min Paralympic Games or the like for kids with disabilities to try out paralympic disciplines?
As someone working in inclusive education I am often confronted on how difficult it can be to make events truly inclusive. I would love to hear some of your ideas on this.
best from Berlin
hc
Heather Cameron
Free University Berlin
University Challenge
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