Social and Employment
Place
France
Sponsor
Morgane Challe
Grant(s)
60,000 € to the Selection Committee at 2006/03/28
Project leader
Fédération Française Handisport
« As a former top-level sportswoman and sports instructor, I feel particularly close to this project. Schools, with qualified ParaSports teachers, will finally be able to allow disabled children to participate in physical education along with their classmates and will perhaps give them the opportunity of making it their career. This is also a way of making people see the disabled in a different way from a very early age. »
Morgane Challe
For able and disabled alike, school is a tremendous opportunity to learn to live in society. Among the many classes provided, sport plays an important role. Unfortunately, the majority of the 52,000 disabled children enrolled in a regular class in France* are automatically excused from attending PE classes because of the lack of qualified teachers. Hence the FFH’s idea to combat this discrimination by training PE teachers who want to obtain a “ParaSport certificate.” To achieve this goal, the FFH wants to establish premises entirely given over to providing this training.
Specific premises and equipment for these classes
The project will come to fruition at the FFH’s headquarters in Paris’s 20th arrondissement, which already houses the International Residence. This center, entirely refurbished to meet the relevant standards, welcomes disabled people from the world over, sportsmen and women or not, for training courses and seminars. The aim now is to extend the available surface area by creating an additional floor for a training center with the necessary equipment.
The 60,000-euro contribution from the Veolia foundation will be used to buy eight wheelchairs designed for basketball, table tennis and athletics. It is also planned to buy Braille printers, assorted software and a magnetic loop for the deaf. Finally, specific furniture for the teachers, themselves disabled, will be installed in the center. Everything will be done to ensure that the training (three weeks over a year) is provided under the best possible conditions. This initiative is designed to ensure that there are no longer any disabled children excluded from PE classes because of their disability.
* Source: French Ministry of Education and Social Affairs for the Handiscol project’.