Page 110 - Bellfort Magazine 2019

Sports Initiatives the players’ needs, allowing it to be ‘My Sport, My Story’
an all-inclusive sport. This means
January Year 13 girls Laura Du Bois— there is no excuse for not getting Following on from last year, we
Pidgeon, Charlotte McKay, Beth La- involved, as a range of abilities and were delighted to welcome back
mont, Rachel McGall and Sarah skills set will not hold you back! We Disability Sport NI for the ‘My
Ann Davis welcomed Disability sport had lots of preparation to do before Sport, My Story’ workshop on re-
teaching the students of Castle Tow- ducing barriers to participation
NI for their “Women in Sport”
programme to Dunclug College. er, our partnership school, but had amongst teenage girls. Two

The programme was designed to great support from the Disability groups got to participate in ses-
increase leadership opportunities as Sport NI link staff throughout. sions which both explored and
well as participation of girls within We learnt that boccia is a tough test challenged their perceptions
sport, as studies shows that the of nerve, tactics and skill as it is about physical activity, and includ-
amount of physical activity reduces in about being able to challenge
teenage years especially in young yourself as well as working as a team
females. Furthermore, the pro- to get the most point possible, aim-
gramme aimed to highlight that ing to land balls as close to the
people with a range of abilities male target, known as the ‘jack’.
or female, can get involved in
In addition, we also learnt that the
physical activity.
students of Castle Tower had phe-
After two sessions of classroom and nomenal dedication, enthusiasm and
practical training, we got to grips a sense of humour when learning the
with a new sport called boccia new sport, as well as trying to
ed an introduction to a Paralympic
(similar to bowls). We observed and compete against us each week, when sport (Boccia and New Age Kurl-
explored the barriers to exercise we quickly discovered we had no ing). Caroline from DSNI ex-
both physical and learning, however chance of winning against the skilful plained to the girls how her disa-
learnt that with a few simple STEPS players and often had to think on our bility was due to an illness that set
(Space, Task, Equipment, People, feet! in during her late 20s; however
Speed) the game is easily adapted for
she did not let that stop her from
being active and she now repre-
“Year 13 girls
are doing a sents Ireland at Boccia.
fabulous job” Such was the success of the pro-
quoted by Dis-
ject, we were held up as an exam-
ability Sport NI.
ple of good practice; filming
Reported by :
took place and we now feature on
Laura
the Sport NI website!
Du Bois -
Pidgeon

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