By Isaac Arkoh, GNA
Cape Coast (C/R), Nov. 10, GNA – Mr Ernest Appiah, Executive Director of ANOPA Project, a sport-for-development non-profit organisation, has called on the Ghana Education Service and other stakeholders to work together to advance disability inclusion in sports in Ghana.
He said meaningful inclusion had to go beyond giving children with disabilities access to sporting facilities or opportunities to participate.
Rather, it should ensure dignity, equity, a sense of belonging and the opportunity to shape the games they played.
“Access is not participation, and participation is not necessarily inclusion,” he said.
Mr Appiah made the call at a day’s workshop on Disability Inclusion in Sport, organised by ANOPA Project in partnership with the RYTHM Foundation.
The workshop brought together 30 teachers from across the six education circuits of the Cape Coast Metropolis.
It explored practical ways to adapt sporting activities, equipment and teaching methods to support students with hearing impairments, visual impairments and intellectual disabilities.
The training focused on promoting participation and equal opportunities, equipping teachers to create sporting environments where every child felt valued and had a place in the game.
Mr Appiah emphasised that children with disabilities should have a voice in how sporting activities were designed and delivered.
He urged stakeholders to make inclusion a shared priority in school and community sports.
Speaking at the programme, Dr Kwadwo Owusu, a lecturer at the University of Cape Coast’s Department of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, empowered the teachers on how sporting activities, equipment and teaching methods could be facilitated to meet the needs of special learners.
He encouraged them to create sporting environments that promoted participation, equal opportunity, dignity and a sense of belonging, so that every child felt valued and had a meaningful place in the game.
Dr Owusu also advised the teachers to listen to children with disabilities and involve them in decisions about how sporting activities were designed and delivered, making inclusion a shared responsibility in both school and community sport.
Mr Eric Otoo, Metropolitan Physical Education Coordinator and Madam Salamatu Gausu, Special Education Coordinator, expressed commitment to promoting quality inclusive education and infrastructure development that ensured every child had access to safe, accessible and equitable learning and play environments.
They pledged to ensure that the principle of no child should be excluded because of location, ethnicity, political affiliation or social status, were consistent with the global vision of inclusive and equitable quality education.
GNA
Edited by Alice Tettey/Kenneth Odeng Adade
Reporter: Isaac Arkoh