Eight national disability sports organisations (NDSOs) have joined forces to launch a campaign to get more people with impairments active.
The Sport England-funded
Together We Will campaign will combine the knowledge and experience of the eight organisations so that they can support disabled people who want to take part in physical activity.
Those taking part include: British Blind Sport, Cerebral Palsy Sport, Dwarf Sports Association UK, LimbPower, Mecap, Special Olympics Great Britain, UK Deaf Sport and WheelPower.
The campaign is being backed by the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) and actor Will Mellor, who has lived with the experience of disabled people in his family.
Lasting three months, the campaign will be split into three themes – increasing awareness of health benefits, a focus on making participants stronger and an emphasis on fun.
Lisa O’Keefe, director of insight at Sport England, said: “We know disabled people are half as likely to be active as non-disabled people. That’s why campaigns liked
Together We Will are so important. We need to put people and what they want and need at the very heart of everything we do.”
According to Sport England’s latest
Active People Survey, the number of disabled people taking part in physical activity dropped by 2,400 year-on-year while the overall population’s participation figures grew by 340,000.
When the figures were published, Sport England chief executive Jennie Price told Sports Management that the industry had to “stop looking at the disabled as one group of people”.
“When we think about disability sport we tend to think about a young person in a wheelchair,” she explained. “Actually, two-thirds of people with any sort of impairment are over 50, while two-thirds of those have more than one impairment.”
She added: “We have to get more sophisticated. Lots of people who have mobility issues have chronic pain – it’s not just a question of getting them there, it’s got to be the right kind of activities, delivery and strengthening options for them. We need to design it even more carefully than we are now.”
