Support swimming for people with different abilities

Melie Boulianne

I worked with the association KEEN (Kids Enjoy Exercise Now), which is a nonprofit organization that provides physical activity for disabled kids and young adults, such as basketball, yoga, and swimming. It is spread all around the US. For this volunteering session, I taught young adults to swim and helped them in the water. We were around twenty volunteers for a dozen kids. The team leader paired one athlete with one volunteer. I was paired with James, a young adult. It was rather delicate at first since he was reluctant about the water. Slowly, he gained confidence and started being more comfortable.  

I have been swimming for years and I have lifeguard experience, therefore I was totally able to provide help. I definitely helped. Those kids need assistance, especially in the water, which is a risky environment. We were a lot of volunteers for not that many kids, but even so, you can always find something to do, play with them and assist a group if needed. I am used to coaching kids back home, I had an experience with an epileptic kid.

People were very approachable and easy to talk to. As soon as I arrived, the people were welcoming and friendly, which gave me confidence. I did feel a connection since we were all there to enjoy the moment and help those kids have fun in the water. As time passed, the activity was more collective than exclusive to one group. It was more about creating a safe space for the kids.  

This experience was personally rewarding more than anything. I am someone that doubts everything especially when it comes to myself. I thought I could never be able to handle the responsibility of one kid. However, I realized that James (the kid I swam with) just wanted to have fun in the water and have a partner. It was not that complicated, I just had to be there for him and have fun with him.  

I was worried since he was very reluctant about the water. I needed him to trust me, which was going to be rather complicated since I was doubtful at first. Then step by step, he agreed to trust me and jumped in, I tried to make things fun and playful. We, first, did the basic stuff. In the end, he did not want to let me go and leave the pool, which was very rewarding.

I feel that people see disabilities as an issue, whether it should be seen as societal identity. We should see people with disabilities as a community that needs support and visibility as much as other communities. Like any other community, it is not supposed to be fixed but to have a voice and be more involved politically in our society.

We can see handicaps as a “cultural” identity. If we analyze this identity under an optimistic globalist spectrum, “While acknowledging globalization’s homogenization dynamic, we should also note its tendency towards cultural diversification and hybridization...cultural hybridization has become most visible in film, sports, and language.” (M. Steger, page 88-89). Disability is increasingly viewed as a positive cultural identity. Thus, inclusive education has the potential to assimilate children with disabilities and incorporate the promotion of disability identities under the prevailing concept of diversity. The earlier you become accustomed to differences the easiest it is to build on and acquire a future comprehension. In my elementary school, there was a special class for people with mental disabilities. Furthermore, such hybridization promotes more visibility and actual representations of people with disabilities like on social media or in movies and sports, such as the Paralympics. Furthermore, “the emerging structure of global governance has been shaped by global civil society”(M.Steger, page 77) - the emergence of NGOs, such as UNICEF which promote equality and inclusivity, which add a political layer to the topic.

However, it is important to recognize intersectionality, an analytical framework for understanding how aspects of an individual's social and political identity combine to create different forms of discrimination and privilege. Disability permeates all other communities and marginalized identity groups. Yet, the voices of white males with physical disabilities have historically been the most focused within the disability rights space.

References

Steger, M. (2020). Globalization: A very short introduction, Oxford University Press