Moving Together.

AWC have launched their new 2007 scheme ‘Moving Together’. The scheme will run in mainstream schools where wheelchair users and their classmates can take part in wheelchair sports and skills training together.

We have been piloting a number of disability/wheelchair awareness courses in mainstream schools during 2006 which have proved very successful. The majority of these courses have been run at a school where there is a wheelchair using pupil attending and the aim has been to give their peer group a greater understanding of the challenges faced by wheelchair users. To this end we have been taking along up to 20 wheelchairs that the able bodied pupils can use. Some courses have been requested at schools that don’t have any wheelchair users attending and these have been equally as valuable as these pupils don’t have much experience of wheelchair users and our training can help to eliminate any misconceptions they may have about young wheelchair users. We have also worked with PE students many of whom intend moving into a career in sports development. 

We have covered issues such as road safety and kerb work for wheelchair users, coping with slopes and rough ground, as well as fun activities such as wheelchair dance and wheelchair basketball. The course includes discussion on pupils expectations and experiences of using the wheelchairs as well as how and when to offer assistance to wheelchair users and safe body mechanics when doing so. We have worked with both primary and secondary students and we have worked with up to 120 students at each school. We have also been involved in a performing arts project where wheelchair users and able bodied students worked together choreographing 2 wheelchair dance sequences for a school production. 

We are receiving more and more requests for these courses and we now see this as a valuable part of AWC’s training