News & Announcements
UCC School of Education and Cope Foundation partner for mixed ability basketball tournament
On April 19th, the final day of classes for the semester, the Physical Education, Sports Studies and Arts (PESSA) programme ended the year on a high note, with its first edition of a mixed-ability basketball tournament held in conjunction with partners from the Cope Foundation.
The Cope Foundation is a Cork-based non-profit organization which supports 2,800 children and adults across county Cork with autism and other intellectual disabilities. We were proud to support Cope in assisting with coaching sessions for their men’s basketball team over both semesters and are grateful to our close partnership with the Mardyke Arena for the provision of facilities, and additional court space for our final tournament. The tournament served as a fine culminating event to a community outreach project which began in semester one. Staff and students from the PESSA have served as coaches on Friday afternoons in the Mardyke arena for basketball sessions for the Cope Foundation, assisting Cope staff in their delivery. Participation in a succession of skill development activities, and games served as the cornerstone of these sessions. The core philosophy of this link-up was to highlight the role and value physical activity has for improving quality of life, developing physical fitness, and nurturing all-round health for all members of the population. Additionally, it gave our PESSA students a wonderful opportunity to gain practical experience working with individuals with additional needs supporting their in-class teaching across their range of modules.
The final tournament was conducted along principles of mixed ability sport, as designed by the International Mixed Ability Sports group. Mixed Ability sports follow the same rule of mainstream sports without adaptations or different rules, with only minor adjustments to take into account individual participants’ needs, creating sporting environments that are safe, welcoming, and non-judgmental.
The sessions and final tournament epitomized key values both we as a programme and the Cope Foundation espouse, namely the provision and promotion of equal and inclusive sport and physical activity for all. The final tournament featuring a number of our students, and Cope service users preached values inherent to all forms of competitive games which Cope place at the centre of the physical activity experiences: Honesty, humility, enjoyment, friendship, fair play, and respect in a competitive but welcoming environment.
We would like to sincerely thank Cope service users and staff for the opportunity to engage in this collaboration which has been a wonderful opportunity for our programme. A special word of thanks must go to Mary Kenefick of the Sport and Physical Activity department in Cope for keeping everything running smoothly across both semesters. The PESSA programme looks forward to developing this relationship with Cope as time progresses.