‘Include Me’ (‘InMe’) addresses the needs of professionals in the field of sports, namely sport
instructors, administrators, helping staff as well as parents and athletes to share experiences and
follow the concept of involving people with special needs in the physical activity process. Not all the
people perceive the need to include disabled people in the same way. The priority given to such an
issue is relevant to the position each individual possesses in an organization. Social inclusion is
promoted differently by different professionals (i.e. instructors, administrators, cleaners) or any
other individual involved in the process of including disabled people in sport. Moreover, every form
of athletic activity has its own specialty as far as inclusion is concerned. All partners in the consortium
implement sports programs that are adapted to athletes with special needs. Two partners are
experts in the field of swimming for people with special needs, one of the partners carries out
fundamental sports content for athletes with special needs. We all have experience in adapting
sports training to people with special needs, so we would like to combine our knowledge with the
project and transfer it to other regular sports clubs. This will have a positive impact on the inclusive
development of sports clubs, so that they will also accept people with special needs into their clubs,
and at the same time we will enable our athletes to try out sports with mixed ability groups. We will
assess the effect of interactions between our athletes and the actors of a regular sport club in order
to understand the perceived inclusive status by everyone involved. Sport activity has positive effects
on the body and spirit both in children with special needs and in those with typical development. In a
broader context, movement is a human natural need. Sports plays an important role in socialization,
since, as a general rule, it combines everything according to the principle of equivalence, regardless
of special needs, gender, culture, race.
The project aims to imprint the situation concerning social inclusion and diversity in clubs of different
sports in every country involved in the project. The tool to be used to measure the existing situation
is the questionnaire. The coordinator will prepare questionnaires which will be divided in two parts:
one general part which will apply to everybody and a second more specialized part which will be
adapted to the disability the athletes involved have – neurological problems, physical disabilities
or/and intellectual disabilities. The selection of the athletes is based on the expertise, experience and
athlete availability of every partner. Dedicated parts of the questionnaires will be applied to the
sports club staff that will host the athletes, the athletes themselves and their carers/parents before
and after the participation. The parents of the disabled people that will participate in the training
sessions will fill in the questionnaires in case the disability of their child prevents them from doing so.
At least 20 questionnaires from each partner besides the participants will be collected pre and post
the training sessions. Five to ten people from each hosting sport club staff as well as typical athletes
will participate in the survey.
- The specific objectives of the InMe project is the raising of awareness on:
- The personal and social development of young athletes through sport action, values and principles of inclusion
- The promotion of inclusive training methods to other sport clubs involved in the project
- The enhancement of the perception of inclusion through sports to other sport clubs
The project consists of three practical parts and one theoretical:
- Application of the questionnaires for employees of hosting sports clubs (sport instructors,
administrators, helping staff) and typical athletes - Application of the questionnaires for athletes with disabilities and parents
- Direct training of people with disabilities in a regular sports club
And theoretical part, where we will focus on quality preparation of questionnaires and their analysis.
