NUS SWD Sports Day briefing
Rachel Shakespeare
Societies and Recreation Officer
University of Teesside Students’ Union
Why did I organise a Disability Awareness in Sport Campaign?
After attending one of the workshops at NUS Convention in June 2004, I decided to set up the disability awareness in sport campaign. I have always had a personal interest in working with disabled people as my aunt had downs syndrome, however after seeing it from a different perspective I decided to do something about it.
What did I do? What do I intend to this year with the campaigns?
I got ideas from speaking to local authorities, disability support groups and the English Federation of Disability Sport. I linked what these people were doing and what our sports clubs do as well, so they could work together to encourage more inclusion in sports.
For example
Our cheerleading team took part in a gymnastics session with a group of students from a local college, who happened to have downs syndrome.
Other events that went on throughout the week included guest speakers, visits from Paralympic gold medallists, Adaptive rowing and New Age Curling.
The disability awareness in sport campaigns at Teesside this year will include a Futsal match against our university team and Doncaster College for the deaf, three students shadowing a Special Olympics gold medallist for two days and linking the NUS SWD sports day with the campaign. Also in February we will be showcasing different disabled sports and hopefully getting celebrities such as Tanni-Grey Thompson to our Union Senate meetings.
What has the campaigns done for our university and Students’ Union?
It has helped the Students’ Union and University work to produce toolkits for Higher education with the English Federation of Disability Sport and the National Disability Team. As well as working with these organisations to organise a Specialist Summer School for disabled young people. Hopefully this work will lead more students into HE and FE. The campaigns have also lead to more work being done in the University, but also last year it led to one of our students becoming sportswoman of the year and she just happened to have a disability.
What I would recommend in starting up a campaign is;
- Make it as interactive as possible. Don’t just have a board up in your union involve as many people as you can.
- Involve all sports and societies as much as you can. It will make them think about accessibility of their activities a lot more.
- Use shock campaign tactics. So if you are doing a notice board or postcard campaign, use statistics and facts that will shock the readers.
- Include organisations such a English Federation of Disability Sport, they can not only put you in touch with other organisations, but can also send you free magazines etc to hand out.
- Most of all enjoy it, because meeting the people you meet and getting your students to think about accessibility and how inclusive their activities are is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job.
Return to this campaign's homepage or view all articles in this campaign.