It was exactly one year ago when the idea of establishing the first ever wheelchair basketball championship was discussed first in an informal gathering of ENGAGE Sport Coaches, the wheelchair basketball volunteers who spend an year of part time service training teams of youths living with physical disabilities around the Kathmandu Valley.
It is incredible how that rough idea got shaped and developed in the next months from that initial talk.
Something that while, initially looked bizarre and unpractical, at the end was actually making sense: after all, despite several one day wheelchair basketball tournaments organized in the past, the nation never had a real championship, a milestone in the efforts of scaling up inclusive sports practices in Nepal.
For all these reasons today is a great pleasure to announce the launching of the Turkish Airlines ENGAGE Empowering League with a public ceremony at the Army Sport Training Center in Lagankhel, followed by four games.
With the Ministry of Youth and Sports as Co-Convener and with the involvement of Turkish Airlines, with its flagship CSR “Widen Your Hearth” initiative, finally we are here to celebrate an important day not only for the development of national sports but also for making the nation more inclusive.
Very importantly, the Embassy of Switzerland, a key development partner of the Government of Nepal, is also generously supporting the League, highlighting how aid for development can be innovatively used to promote inclusion for the ultimate goal of supporting the Government in pursuing greater levels of shared equity in the country.
Some of you might also wonder why it is so symbolically important to organize the League in Nepal. There are few reasons and let me explain them.
First the power of sports: most of the people practice some sort of sports and many more follow some sports related events, either the achievements or failures of a favorite football or basketball clubs or the competitions involving the national teams.
The incredible thing about sports is that it binds people together, greatly contributing in creating a sense of common belonging like a community of persons sharing the same passion and roots.
Now think of the power of sports if applied to development of the nation, how transformative it can be and how far it can go.
Through initiatives like the League, sports help generate a new understanding about disabilities, an issue often wrongly considered only through the prisms of development but actually an issue of national interest.
After all, how can we think of a modern and prosperous nation if persons living with disabilities are not only neglected but also not properly accounted for in the national statistics?
How progressive can this nation claim to be if buildings remain mostly inaccessible to persons living with disabilities and if the job opportunities are not equally shared among those youths who are as capable as others but are made vulnerable because the society’s barriers towards their physical impairments ?
That’s why we need novel approaches. While certainly a more vigorous advocacy and campaigning effort is the need of the hour, inclusive sport offer a new way to deal with stigma and discrimination that often experienced by persons living with disabilities.
Sports offer an easy way to build bridge and establish new connections across the society, showcasing the skills of persons living with disabilities who, through playing in a court, have a unique opportunity to get noticed and praised.
Second, using sports as a connector and catalyst for change, we can build a new movement that can lobby and sometimes pressurizes the government to drastically improve the lives of persons with disabilities.
We should not forget that it took decades to the American disability movement to ensure that a comprehensive legislation, the American with Disability Act, could be passed by the Congress.
This was possible only through painstaking incremental steps achieved through multiple forms of mass mobilization, civil and non violent acts of disobedience and grassroots activism.
That’s why sports can revive the ongoing efforts of the disability movement in Nepal, bringing hope for change, a change that can be achieved only through stronger engagement and enhanced partnerships across all the sectors of the society.
The League might offer a blueprint on how to do this. The Government of Nepal in partnership with an NGO like ENGAGE and with the support of an historic development partner like Switzerland and a global corporate powerhouse like Turkish Airlines and a myriad of other corporate houses and individuals, is working together with nine League wheelchair basketball teams to initiate a new wave of interest towards disability related issues.
While definitely there is scope for a much stronger involvement of other corporate sector players of the country, the League shows that it is high time to engage and mobilize the common people, the citizens of this country.
Sport playing is probably the only platform able to reach out the masses, challenging unconventionally and also unconsciously the stereotypes surrounding disabilities.
We can start from schools. This is way the involvement of the Embassy of Switzerland is timely because it will allow the organization of awareness programs in different colleges around the Valley.
As result we will be able to set up All Inclusive Empowering Clubs where students at grassroots level will advocate for more inclusive communities locally.
Hopefully hundreds of students will grasp a new understanding of what must be done for the country to become more inclusive and disable friendly.
Sports can level the playing field and make the difference to make Nepal a truly inclusive nation.
While I am emphasizing the developmental and societal role of the League, we should not forget that persons playing wheelchair basketball are no less athletes than others and ultimately play on a court to compete and win.
While all the League’s players are ready to turn themselves into disability rights advocates, they rightly want to be recognized as sportspersons that deserve equal treatment at the par with other athletes.
Hopefully in the future the League will grow country wise with more participating teams, more students involved and more corporate and development partners supporting it.
We should not forget that we are just at the beginning of a long road toward inclusive change.
The author is Co-Founder of ENGAGE. For the schedules of the League’s games, check www.facebook.com/engagenepal
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