Sport, it is evident, is not only physical activity. Sometimes it can also be a tool for inclusion, cohesion and fostering empathy. At least this is what was evident yesterday on the first Paralympic day of the third edition of the program Inclusive Sport at School with students from s’Olivera schoolin Puig d’en Valls.
Since 1999, Jordi Morales García (Esparraguera, Barcelona, 1985) is a high-level Paralympic table tennis athlete and this Friday morning he explained, to more than 140 students fourth, fifth and sixth years of primary school, their experience in the world of sports and the binomial between ability and disability (“in the same way that we must speak naturally about disability, we also have to see that a person with a disability has many capabilities”), among other aspects.
Around ten in the morning, he begins his speech in the auditorium of the Puig d’en Valls Cultural Center by asking the children present if they see anything in him that catches their attention. Morales is sitting, wearing long pants, and no one argues an answer to his question. Shortly after he gets up to show the way he walks. The Catalan athlete was born with spina bifida. “The muscles in the back of my leg are not well developed,” he details.
This activity is organized by the Sports Department of the Consell and the ‘Sanitas Foundation’ Chair of Studies on Inclusive Sports (CEDI) with the collaboration of the Santa Eulària City Council and the objective is to bring the youngest people closer to other realities and to understand the inclusion of practical and fun way. And after the talk by the athlete who comes each day, there is usually a practical part in which the students experience firsthand what it is like to practice some sports with some type of disability.
Thus, this Friday, from approximately 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., “about 90 students with the support of three technicians, a program coordinator, the CEIP s’Olivera Physical Education teachers and Jordi Morales himself,” played sitting volleyball , goalball or football and athletics with visual disabilities, detailed from the Consell. Morales, specifically, directs the sitting volleyball portion.
Not afraid to talk about it
Shortly before starting the talk, the first part of the day, Morales comments, in conversation with this newspaper, that he has already participated on several occasions in activities of this type in educational centers. «It is a very rewarding experience for me and I think for them too. What we achieved, and this is something that happens a lot at these ages, is that they are not afraid to talk about disability. It is a topic that often generates many taboos, but they are much more spontaneous [que los adultos]», he values.
“We are an inclusive school, but students must know that this continues outside”
In this sense, he highlights that they dare to ask questions that surely older people would not ask and, from the first moment, the Paralympian makes it clear to them that during question time they can ask any questions they want: “I will answer everything you know. The time is now, don’t hold anything back.” And this is precisely the best form of normalization: talking about it.
«What is very good today [por ayer] “It is that in the practical part we put them in the situation of experiencing a disability, but they do it in a fun way, it is not something that makes them afraid,” adds Morales during the interview.
Inclusion of adults too
Ana Roig is a Physical Education teacher at the Puig d’en Valls school and points out that knowledge leads to normalization: «We are a very inclusive school, where they experience the normality of other children with disabilities, but sometimes they lack knowing that this has a way out beyond school,” he points out.
It is key to show that the inclusion that is already practiced in this center can have continuity in adulthood and that disability is fully compatible with the practice of sport and, in cases like Morales’, with having a successful career in this area. . That is, it can also be a professional outlet.
«We, within the school, also work on inclusive sports. For example, the second grade groups are now practicing goalball. The sixth graders will start playing sitting volleyball. It is important that they know these sports that are not the usual ones,” adds Roig in conversation with Diario de Ibiza.
Morales emphasizes that it is essential that new generations are prepared for these issues “because, at the end of the day, throughout their lives they will surely have some type of interaction with disability,” whether in person or through a family member. , acquaintance or in any other situation. «Now they are at an age where they are moldable and are still creating themselves as people. They have not yet acquired those inputs from the outside that often come accompanied by fear or taboos,” he adds.
His beginnings in table tennis
Asked about his connection with sport, he explains that it came about “very naturally” and in a very similar way to that of any other child: “From a very young age, for reasons of rehabilitation, I did swimming, but then I got tired. I start my relationship [con el tenis de mesa] at six years old, almost seven.
And in his town there was a lot of tradition with this sport and his friends practiced it, so his parents signed him up for classes. Morales was the only one in his club with a disability, but he played against the rest face to face and was always so integrated into the dynamic that it was later, with the passage of time, when he discovered “the Paralympic world.”
“In the practical part they know what it is like to live with a disability, but with fun and without fear”
In fact, at the end of the talk, the protagonist of the day talks about different theoretical concepts, among them, adapted sport and, what should be the final objective: inclusive sport. In the first case, there is a separate group of able-bodied players of that same sport, while in the paradigm of inclusive sport “everyone participates to carry out an activity, whether they have any disability or not at all.” . “There is a lot of talk about the subject, but we are very far from being able to get there,” he laments.
After the talk, teachers Sergi David and Ana Roig, and the Consell’s Sports coach, Toni Suñer, present Morales with a medal from the inclusive sports festival that will be held in 2024 as a closing of this edition of the Esport Inclusiu program. l’Escola in Ibiza.
At the end, a group of sixth grade students explained that they loved the talk: “They have shown us that people with disabilities can also do very ‘cool’ things. “Everyone can do everything” / “If you set it as a personal challenge, you can achieve it, if you put in a lot of effort.”
Furthermore, in s’Olivera we work on projects and these boys, from the sixth A class, do one on different sports: “We call ourselves ‘els esportistes’ and that is why they came here today,” explains a teacher who accompanies them. .
2023-10-28 04:00:21
#Sport #inclusion #childhood #Ibiza
