With contact across Europe and interest from places as far away as Argentina, he soon realized there was a movement and founded IMAS to give it structure and purpose. IMAS offers education, shares best practice and provides practical training to help Mixed Ability teams succeed. It also empowers experts with lived experience of disability to train advocates for Mixed Ability sport, such as health and social care professionals, school teachers, sports coaches and administrators, as well as policymakers.
“All these people create the ecosystem that drives our movement forward. It is grounded in, and belongs to, local communities everywhere. If it was something imposed from the top – that wouldn’t be sustainable,” he says.
That’s not to say there haven’t been challenges. “Barriers are always the same. Cost, transport, time, volunteering,” Corazza says. “But the big obstacle to bring about change is cultural. There’s still this wider mentality whereby people with disability can’t do certain things. The stereotypes and prejudices are still quite shocking.”
Having said that, in his experience, where there’s a will there’s a way: “Everyone who starts a Mixed Ability team knows someone who was excluded, a son or daughter or sibling who wanted to be part of a club, and they are the champions driving it forward. We know there’s a global demand for Mixed Ability and we can’t meet it without adequate resources. In that sense, the partnership we have [with Flutter] is essential.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.flutter.com ’
