DPR News
UCC Wheelchair Basketball4All Event Invitation
Six hundred Transition Year students from 30 schools across five counties gathered at the Mardyke Arena on Tuesday for a Wheelchair Basketball4All event.
Organised by UCC Sports Studies and Physical Education third-year students, it was the first time the event was held since before Covid with the aim of promoting an inclusive message that sporting activity is for everyone.
The event followed a leadership training day for students which taught them how to champion inclusion through sport and addressed perceptions and terminology around disability. The event is intended to ripple out into the community, with students and teachers seeing how to organise similar events in their own schools, while also acting as a fundraiser for Irish Wheelchair Association-Sport.
“I’m a person with a disability myself. I play wheelchair basketball. I know how exhilarating it can be, it’s really fast,” said Clíona Horan, sports inclusion disability officer with Cork Sports Partnership.
Paul Ryan, national operations manager at IWA-Sport, is a former Paralympic sailor and current member of Rebel Wheelers but turned his hand to refereeing for the day. He noted how immersed kids were in the experience, with phones left aside for the day’s activities.
“Sport is at its best is when kids are really enjoying themselves, and they are,” he said.
“It’s a fundraiser for IWA-Sport but it’s more than that. It’s really about creating a level of awareness about what’s going on in your community."