Throughout 2020, Cara - the national body for Sports Inclusion - has been successfully piloting the Xcessible Local Sports Partnership (LSP ) / National Governing Body (NGB ) Bronze Award with the following seven organisations; Basketball Ireland, Swim Ireland, Badminton Ireland, Cycling Ireland, Mayo Sports Partnership, Clare Sports Partnership and Kildare Sports Partnership.
Through the Xcessible Award, Cara supported and guided the seven NGBs and LSPs to create more opportunities, through coaching, participation, volunteering, officiating, and high performance, while building a strong strategic platform for inclusion within each of the organisations.
Xcessible has been developed by using the Sport Inclusion Disability Charter as a guiding tool. The seven organisations were guided through the bronze award under the headings of Openness, People, Activities, Facilities, and Promotion, supported by Cara through each area while being set realistic and manageable goals and deadlines.
Each organisation was required to provide evidence of their work and journey and presented to the Xcessible panel at the end of November, reporting on their experiences, results, and outcomes of their work completed in line with the objectives of the Xcessible Award. The next stage in the journey for these organisations will be to progress to the silver award in 2021 and onwards eventually to achieve gold recognition.
Commenting on the success of Xcessible Cara’s Strategic Operations, Manager, Brenda O’Donnell, said: "Congratulations to Clare Sports Partnership, Mayo Sports Partnership Kildare Sports Partnership and Basketball Ireland, who have achieved bronze status for the Xcessible Award in 2020. We look forward to continuing to support Badminton Ireland, Swim Ireland & Cycling Ireland to complete their final few tasks on their Xcessible Bronze journey and to achieve bronze status in early 2021."
Mayo Sports Partnership Chairman, Cllr Michael Loftus, added: "This award is a tribute to the hard-working staff of Mayo Sports Partnership who continually strive to include people of all abilities in their programmes. Special mention to Sports Inclusion Disability Officer, Ray Mc Namara, who leads out on these initiatives and who co-ordinated the application process."
Over 500 people with a disability participate in 20 Sports Inclusion Programmes annually, with many of these initiatives small in number but having a reported high impact on the individual's health and wellbeing.
Stressing the importance of collaborating with local agencies and disability services, Sports Partnership head, Charlie Lambert, said: "Without the co-operation of local partners supplying volunteers, transport, equipment and facilities, we just would not be able to provide the level of participation opportunities we do.
"It's all down to working in partnership and we are particularly thankful for the close working relationship we have with all stakeholders in the provision of these opportunities."
To find out more about CARA go to https://caracentre.ie/. Details of Mayo Sports Partnerships Sports Inclusion Programme can be found at https://www.mayo.ie/sports-partnership/programmes/disability-sport. Queries can be forwarded to Sports Inclusion Disability Officer, Ray Mc Namara, by calling (094 ) 9064362 or email: [email protected].
