Within the European Union there are still many challenges to full inclusion of non-mainstreaming groups.
More specifically the social and economic inclusion of disabled people, migrants and young people still lags behind.
In fact, people with disabilities deal with barriers when they want to pursue their careers especially in the field of sport: sometimes due to interpersonal obstacles (lack of self-esteem), lack of intervention at policy level or due to organizational difficulties in some organizations.
IMPACTS has put all its efforts in addressing this situation and progress made has been latent and was shared among the partnership during the last meeting held in Maastricht on the 16th and 17th November 2017.
During the final meeting, project results were shown, and as highlight, we can see that a strong network has been created and finally, sports clubs are more aware of disabled athletes’ needs and can consequently better their structures and their sports’ activities.
Some of the achievements of the project have been:
- Improving career opportunities in sport for disabled athletes;
- Establishing links between education/training (vocational training centres) and sport (associations, clubs, athletes);
- Sharing best practice in sports coach/trainer training methodology;
- Analyzing practices and experiences in sports to establish a good relationship with disabled athletes;
- Promote the disabled athlete as a role model to increase participation of disabled people in sport.
IMPACTS – IMproving Para-Athlete Coaching and Training careers in Sport is an ERASMUS + – Collaborative Partnerships | Sport project. Its partnership is composed by the following partners:
- EURICON (The Netherlands, Coordinator);
- Merseyside Expanding Horizons (UK);
- Hacettepe University Faculty of Sport Sciences (Turkey);
- SPGN Stichting Promotie Gehandicaptensport Nederland (The Netherlands);
- SPON Stowarzyszenie Pomocy Osobom Niepełnosprawnym (Poland);
- Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo “Danilo Dolci” (Italy).
For further information on the project, please, contact marta.orozco@danilodolci.org.