Able in sport. Able in life.
APAID focuses on improving lives of people with disabilities using sport as a tool. Our specificity is that APAID seeks to strengthen existing organizations by adapting their activities and policies to enable inclusion of people with a disability. In doing so, we add value to existing football for development programs. We link the strengths of our partners with our expertise in adapted sport in order to create sustainable change for people with disabilities.
We use adapted football first of all to give people with disabilities an opportunity to become aware of, strengthen and show their abilities. Because sport is a very cost-effective mean of rehabilitation with the potential to increase self-confidence and social interaction, it can empower individuals with disabilities. Secondly, we use sport as a platform to spread information to the communities. Not only are coaches trained to inform communities about the rights of people with disabilities, the athletes themselves show their abilities to spectators.
In this way, APAID brings children with disabilities off the sidelines and back into the game!
About You
Section 1: About You
First Name
Steffi
Last Name
de Jong
Website
Organization
APAID
Country
Netherlands, NB
Section 2: About Your Organization
Organization Name
APAID
Organization Website
Organization Phone
+31612245115
Organization Address
Gluckstraat 41
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
Organization Country
Netherlands, NB
Your idea
Name Your Project
Able in sport. Able in life.
Country your work focuses on
Uganda, KMP
Describe Your Idea
APAID focuses on improving lives of people with disabilities using sport as a tool. Our specificity is that APAID seeks to strengthen existing organizations by adapting their activities and policies to enable inclusion of people with a disability. In doing so, we add value to existing football for development programs. We link the strengths of our partners with our expertise in adapted sport in order to create sustainable change for people with disabilities.
We use adapted football first of all to give people with disabilities an opportunity to become aware of, strengthen and show their abilities. Because sport is a very cost-effective mean of rehabilitation with the potential to increase self-confidence and social interaction, it can empower individuals with disabilities. Secondly, we use sport as a platform to spread information to the communities. Not only are coaches trained to inform communities about the rights of people with disabilities, the athletes themselves show their abilities to spectators.
In this way, APAID brings children with disabilities off the sidelines and back into the game!
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
First of all, as far as we know, there is no other organization in the countries we work that uses a holistic approach in trying to address the personal needs of people with disabilities AND the need of community members in getting disability related information. As a result, people with disabilities end up being personally supported by an organization but facing an unsupportive environment to live in or vice versa. We believe that adapted physical activities will meet the needs of people with disabilities because it has the power to focus on both personal needs and needs related to the community.
Secondly, the fact that we do not reinvent the wheel but use partnerships to add value to existing organizations makes our working method unique. We enable our partners to run inclusive programs through advice and capacity building in the area of adapted football after which we only stay involved for Monitoring and Evaluation.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
In the projects we have set up so far in Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique, the M&E results support our assumption that adapted football can improve lives of people with disabilities. The participants reported an improvement in their quality of life due to an increase in physical capacity, self esteem, social interaction and a more positive attitude from community members towards them. This in turn, seemed to strengthen their position in other areas of life such as school end employment market.
Some quotes from the ground that may better show the impact:
“APAID has given me a life-changing experience. Before, I thought I was useless, but now I realize that I mean something.” Coach (with a disability) Johnson – Nairobi, Kenya
“I want to keep playing until I am very old, because when I play with my friends I feel very good and I forget the pain.” Paul (14) – Kampala, Uganda
“I’m happy because I’ve also got the chance to compete with other kids.” Saad (12) – Kampala, Uganda
The impact in numerical terms: Up to date, we have assisted three organizations in implementing inclusive football programs. 107 coaches (including adults with disabilities) were trained to lead activities for children with disabilities and to raise awareness about the rights of these children among community members. 6 of the coaches are currently enrolled in a training of trainers course which will ensure sustainability of the coaching education in the future. At this moment, 1056 children and youth with disabilities are participating in weekly activities. Awareness was raised among over 20.000 community members.
Problem
Approximately 560 million people with disabilities in the world live in developing countries. There, the majority lacks opportunities and faces discrimination. Children with disabilities are often treated as outcast, kept hidden in homes and even thrown out and deserted. This is caused by negative attitudes from communities towards people with disabilities. These attitudes in turn are a result of cultural beliefs viewing disability as a curse. Those ideas are still intact due to a lack of information about disability and a paucity of opportunities for people with disabilities to show their abilities rather than disabilities.
An example: Julius is a 14 years old boy from Kampala (Uganda) who has a double leg amputation. When we first met him in his home, he was just sitting in the room, doing nothing and being neglected by his family. His mother had no expectations and no hope for him because he was missing two legs. Even though he loved playing, he had no such opportunities. (Right now he is the topscorer of his football team, is enrolled in school, is very popular in the community and his mother is his biggest fan during the games).
Actions
After a thorough field research and needs assessment, we founded APAID in February 2008. Since then, we have set up three projects (Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique) and have established 6 main strategic partnerships with the United Nations Office on Sport for Development and Peace, Handicap International, the Royal Dutch Football Association, MYSA Kenya, The Kids League Uganda and ProSport Mozambique. In order to generate our own income, we have set up APAID consulting in December 2009.
We start each project with an introduction mission to assess the situation and needs of people with disabilities in the focus area and to understand the working method and strengths of our local partner. Together, we then write a project proposal and raise the funds necessary to implement the project. During the implementation phase, APAID educates staff members of the partner and new coaches in the area of adapted sports to enable them to lead and run the inclusive project. Courses for trainers of new coaches are conducted to ensure sustainability of the project. At the end, we only stay involved in Monitoring and Evaluation of the project.
Results
The expected results in terms of numbers are different per project, but will always include:
- To get a good understanding of the situation and needs of people with disabilities in order to develop a project proposal in collaboration with the local partner.
- To educate staff members, coaches and trainers of coaches (including people with disabilities) in the area of adapted sport.
- To improve the quality of life (in physical, psychosocial and environmental domain) of children and youth with disabilities as a result of their participation in adapted physical activities.
- To increase the understanding and implementation of the rights of people with disabilities among community members as a result of the awareness raising during the activities. This in turn will lead to a decrease in discrimination in all areas of life and the creation of a more inclusive society.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
In the first and second year, the focus will be on strengthening our income generating mechanism by improving the marketing strategies of APAID consulting. In addition, we will increase our impact by starting new projects with among others Kick4Life and Grassroots Soccer in Lesotho and Sport4Socialization in Zimbabwe and by enlarging the scope of the current projects. An accessible knowledge management system needs to be developed in order to save all the knowledge and learned lessons from all these projects. Lastly we will continue to develop a reliable and easy-to-implement evaluation tool that combines qualitative and quantitative research methods (e.g. open-ended interviews, focus group discussions, questionnaires and physical tests) in assessing the quality of life of people with disabilities in our projects.
In the third year, we will focus on scaling up our venture by using the improved income generating mechanism, the increased impact and the developed M&E tool to attract (local) partners.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
At this moment the NGO APAID owns APAID consulting so that profit, time and experience can be invested in the NGO to benefit the projects in developing countries. APAID consulting generates income and gains expertise by providing advice on inclusive programs to governments, (international) organizations, companies etc. It would be difficult to generate enough revenue if those clients wouldn’t be interested in our services. This would prevent us from growing as it will bring us back to becoming completely dependent on donors.
Fortunately, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) is gaining momentum and makes a growing amount of our possible clients aware of the importance of inclusive programs. In addition, as far as we know, we are the first actors in this market which enables us to be a step ahead of others.
How many people will your project serve annually?
More than 10,000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
Less than $50
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
In what country?
Uganda, KMP
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Yes
If yes, provide organization name.
The Kids League Uganda, MYSA Kenya, ProSport Mozambique
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Yes
Does your organization have any non-monetary partnerships with government?
Yes
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Actually our whole working method is based on partnerships. Collaborating with others strengthens the project team as you can join expertise, experience, and strengths. In addition, we have learned a lot from our partners, which will only benefit our future projects.
Still too often, organizations see each other as competitors because everyone tries to receive grants from the same pool of money. In our view, we are absolutely not competitors but rather collaborators towards the same goal; creating social change through sports. It is this goal that should be central and not the organization itself. So, the importance of looking for ways to collaborate with others in order to enhance the impact of projects is our single biggest insight.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
1. To strengthen our income generating mechanism in such a way that we generate more revenue so we can take up more projects.
2. In relation to number 1, we need to improve our marketing strategies in order to attract more clients for APAID consulting.
3. We need to continue to carefully select partners with the ability to run, sustain and grow the projects. In addition we need to continue to collaborate with business partners who are willing to build our organizational expertise.
The Story
What was the defining moment that led you to this innovation?
During the international Erasmus Mundus Master in Adapted Physical Activity (EMMAPA), Pierre Bataille and myself studied and travelled in South Africa. We went to the townships and were shocked by the life conditions of people with disabilities living in poverty. E.g. a 13-year old boy with a speaking problem and a broken hip was now called "Chair-man" because he couldn't leave his chair by himself. Since no one paid him attention, we saw that he had peed on himself. This experience was a real eye-opener. We realized that we wanted to contribute to change this situation and believed with our knowledge we could. We then visited Kenya for a field research and needs assessment and decided to found the organization dedicated to improve that what we had seen and experienced.
Right now, the memory of Julius, a Ugandan boy of 14 years old with a double leg amputation who surprised everyone by becoming the proudest ever top scorer of his team, gives me all the motivation to continue working with all my passion towards this goal.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Steffi de Jong and Pierre Bataille (co-founders of APAID) hold a total of four Masters in the area of Adapted Sports. Their passions are clear: sports for people with disabilities and social entrepreneurship. That is why they have worked with 200% commitment to develop APAID in the last 2.5 years and are planning to continue doing that for the coming years!
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Email from Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
50 words or fewer
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Julius.jpg | 49.62 KB |
| Kenya.jpg | 46.31 KB |
 | 102 weeks agoPierre Bataille and Steffi de Jong updated this Competition Entry. |
| 102 weeks agoPierre Bataille and Steffi de Jong updated this Competition Entry. |
| 102 weeks agoPierre Bataille and Steffi de Jong updated this Competition Entry. |
| 102 weeks agoPierre Bataille and Steffi de Jong updated this Competition Entry. |
| 108 weeks agoPierre Bataille and Steffi de Jong submitted this idea. |
