Make sport inclusive
Sport Birmingham aims to collate and share best practice in disability equality across the city, and work with our various partners to find a collaborative way forward to improving and increasing opportunities for disabled people to access physical activity and sport.
Disabled people are much less likely to regularly access and take part in physical activity and sport than non-disabled people. This market is complex, with almost 75% of disabled people having more than one impairment resulting in huge variations in people’s needs and preferences.
This is why at Sport Birmingham we aim to collate and share best practice in disability equality across the city, and work with our various partners to find a collaborative way forward to improving and increasing opportunities for disabled people to access physical activity and sport.
Please see below for further information regarding our work in this area and participation opportunities.
See My Voice
In partnership with British Blind Sport, Sport Birmingham will be delivering the See My Voice Programme across Birmingham, which is a sports leadership volunteer programme for young people with a disability. Throughout the programme, the young people will be involved in various local volunteering opportunities and gain a bespoke leadership qualification.
The project helps Young Leaders gain confidence and develop life skills, which will inevitably boost their self-esteem and improve their employment prospects. It also allows them to meet new people and become involved in their communities.
We are looking for young people with a disability, between the ages of 14 and 19 to volunteer for the year-long scheme, which will begin in December 2021. Applications are now open and will close on Wednesday 1st December.
Places on the programme are limited.
Disability In Birmingham
- In Birmingham, just under 200,000 of people have a long standing limiting disability or illness, yet only 13.5% of this population regularly accesses physical activity and sport
- This is despite the fact that 55.7% of adults who are inactive would like to take part in some form of sport or physical exercise
- Across all cultural facilities in Birmingham, lower proportions of Black, Minority Ethnic and Asian (BMEA); disabled and low income residents tend to participate in physical activity than do nationally
- Common reported barriers to participation include: inappropriate facilities, particularly for children and BMEA groups; lack of awareness; cost; and local accessibility
Disability Sports Forum
To address the above challenges, Sport Birmingham is working with a range of sporting and non-sporting partners through the Birmingham Disability Sports Forum to influence and advocate a more collaborative approach to increasing the number of disabled people participating in physical activity and sport.
The Birmingham Disability Sports Forum group consists of a range of strategic and operational partners, including National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGBs); sports clubs, specialist charities , disabled user-led organisations, and community groups who are passionate about opportunity for all and in sharing best practice to improve the opportunities for people with long-term health conditions or disabilities to access physical activity and sport.
The overarching aims of the Birmingham Disability Sports Forum are to:
- Advocate, promote and raise the profile of disability-friendly recreational activities across the city
- Increase the number of needs-led activities so more people with a disability can take part in physical activity and sport
- Develop existing provision and increase the quality of activity delivery by helping mainstream clubs and other organisations to become more inclusive
- Consult with service users and the general public to better understand the current (and predominant) barriers to participation and find the best approach to address/overcome these
Want to help or be involved?
The Birmingham Disability Sports forum welcomes new members wishing to join and help further our cause, or to simply find out more about inclusive activities in the city.
We’d also love to hear from volunteers and organisations wishing to get involved in the Birmingham Inclusive Sports Fest by helping to organise and deliver activities or ensuring information about our work reaches as many new audiences as possible.
If interested in becoming a sponsor or supporting partner of the Disability Sports Forum or annual Sports Fest week, please contact Nicola English
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