There are in Palermo people with disability who not only do sport at professional level, but also decided to exploit their potential to train other people, with disability or not, and stimulate in them the will to do sport, taking from it great benefits at physical and psychological level. Doing sport is good, it is known, and the value of the “sport for all” needs to be more and more promoted, to break down that barriers – cultural and structural ones – that still are limiting it.
A person with disability who do sport with constancy, will benefit from it in terms of self-esteem, self-confidence, socialisation, avoiding the risk of social marginalisation, fighting prejudices and overcoming the trauma that his condition can represent. Moreover, a coach who is himself a disable athlete, can represent an added value in terms of motivation, becoming a perfect role model to emulate, a clear demonstration that all difficulties can be faced and overcome with determination, commitment and will.
We met some of the disabled trainers more active here in Palermo, who opened the doors of their gym for us, telling and showing us directly how a training session works: in some cases specific equipment and adequate methodologies are needed; in all cases is essential an approach particularly careful to the needs of the trainees, and a trainer with physical difficulties is the one who can understand them better and give the right support.
Why we did this?
Within the project IMPACTS – IMproving Para-Athlete Coaching And Training careers in Sport, CSC is collecting the witnesses of coaches and trainers in Palermo, to share and exchange them with other ones from Poland, Netherlands, Turkey and UK. Their training methodologies, approaches and technics will be put in common for the benefit of all people involved and of all the ones who will want to take advantage of them.
The project is funded by the ERASMUS+ SPORT programme: the project partners met in Liverpool (UK) last January, to plan this exchange of best practices which will lead to the publication of an Handbook and to the testing of these methodologies at local level.
CSC promotes periodic meetings with athletes and actors interested in the topic: if you want to be part of IMPACTS network, write to antonella.alessi@danilodolci.org.