Handisport’IAE organizes awareness-raising activities about disability for schoolchildren, in partnership with the Departmental Handisport Committee, the Academy of Nice, the National Sports Museum, and Usep 06. Today, the fifth-grade students from Jules Ferry School participated in the project through wheelchair basketball.
What is the goal of the Handisport’IAE project? To raise awareness and initiate. The great challenge of this day is to encourage interaction between able-bodied people and those with disabilities. A challenge that the schoolchildren of Jules Ferry School were able to face by trying wheelchair basketball under the guidance of professionals in the discipline from Cavigal. Seated in an adapted wheelchair, the fifth-grade students competed in friendly matches and were thus able to discover a way of playing basketball previously unknown to them.
Exchange to Raise Awareness
The day is structured in two phases: practice and exchange. During the exchanges, the students delved into the world of disability, whether in sports or everyday life. Jennifer Roustan, a speaker and disabled from birth, a member of Cavigal’s basketball section, and Thomas Gammella, president of the Handisport’IAE association, explain their action: “this action allows us to understand the children’s feelings, to raise their awareness, and to discuss people with disabilities through sports, which is a vector of awareness and fun “. The message the project wishes to convey is that ” disability is not a fatality and one can continue to live like everyone else in everyday life even with a disability “, continues Thomas. ” The awareness is beginning to bear fruit, so we are not here for nothing “, confides Jennifer in turn.
Joêlle Martinaud, Deputy Mayor in charge of Solidarity, Social Affairs, and Disabilities, highlighted the importance of organizing actions on disability: “On this World Accessibility Day, it’s an opportunity to show that the city of Nice is committed to these services. The children understand what disability is and it’s important to change their perspective“. For Jean-Marc Giaume, Deputy Mayor of Nice in charge of education, school catering, and extracurricular activities, it is about “showing our children that diversity applies to several disabilities“.
An Educational Project
The Handisport’IAE project initially started as a student project which has since January 2019 become an independent association that operates in schools. The project includes 7 handisport clubs paired with 9 schools from the Academy of Nice.
This day of action is a step for the project which will culminate on June 27, 2019, in Nice on the occasion of the “handisport final” which will bring together about ten departmental handisport clubs and more than 250 students.
Finally, the classes involved in the project will participate in a poster contest stemming from the call for projects “The Cherry on the Cake”. The contest aims to highlight people with disabilities. An exhibition of the best posters will be held at the National Sports Museum.
