Sports Handicap Inclusive Experience

The issue of welcoming, supporting, and training “students with special status” arises recurrently in higher education institutions, both in France and in the other countries of this consortium. A...

The project aims to achieve several ambitious yet realistic objectives for the benefit of students with disabilities (SWD) and the staff involved. For SWD, the general goal is to facilitate (and increase) mobility opportunities related to their study programs by ensuring that the teams responsible for supporting SWD, both in home and host institutions, work closely together and follow similar or complementary procedures. The project also includes a sports component, enabling SWD to discover and then regularly practice a sport under optimal conditions, with, for example, staff specially trained in adaptive sports or specific equipment. Of course, the goal is not to separate SWD from other students, whether in their studies or sports activities. In an inclusive approach, priority will be given (depending on the possibilities of the sport in question) to creating mixed teams, as with sailing in La Rochelle or calisthenics in Athens

The project enabled the implementation of specific training: improvement of foreign language skills (for both students and staff), as well as the acquisition of techniques and professional procedures related to the support of SWD in the context of their university studies or the practice of adapted sports activities (for professionals). Several mobilities were carried out for both students and professionals; in total, 31 students were able to benefit from mobility thanks to the project. Five mobilities were organized as part of the project, each accompanied by an adapted sports event for disabilities: the first in Zadar, with the Zadar Games; the second in La Rochelle, with the Mille Sabords; the third in Athens, with a wheelchair basketball tournament; the fourth in Bucharest, with a multisport afternoon; and the last in Klaipeda, with an orienteering race.