All Together for Disabled Sport!

Newspapers are always full of coverage of sporting events and achievements of those without disabilities, but aside from the Paralympics disabled sport is often overshadowed. Members of Outset Youth Action’s vproject in West Sussex wanted to change this and get more recognition for disabled sport and those involved in it.

Inspired by the success of British athletes at the 2008 Paralympics Outset vproject organised an event at the Burgess Hill Triangle Leisure Centre on Sunday 16th November. The day aimed to promote the array of sporting clubs, opportunities and facilities on offer to disabled people throughout their local area.

One of the main successes of the Outset Youth Action vproject is that it involves people both with and without disabilities working together. Since the beginning of the project they have worked together to plan, develop and carry out the project and have overcome preconceptions and prejudices they had about each other. Ryan Flynn a member of the vproject team said, “I was initially slightly cautious about working with people I didn’t know especially as some of them don’t have a disability like me, but I had a great time and got to meet new people as well as putting on a fun event that I am really passionate about”

Organising the event gave the team the opportunity to learn new skills:- They were interviewed on the radio, wrote advertisements for newspapers and developed and distributed all the publicity materials as well as designing the programme for the day. And they obviously did a good job as feedback from the participants was fantastic and made the whole event worthwhile, 8 year old James Alwyn spent over an hour playing baseball and only put his racquet down as the session drew to a close. Well done to all involved for a great day!



Liz Avenell
Outset Youth Action