In this way, sports can become easier for the disabled

The note will be submitted on Monday. A selection of proposals: Swimming lessons for children with disabilities should not be more expensive than swimming lessons for healthy children, transport bottlenecks should be resolved, a national campaign should be launched and the ministry should submit an annual report on policy regarding people with disabilities. disabilities. constraint.

59% of the population of the Netherlands participate in sports. But among people with disabilities, this percentage is only about 34 percent. The government’s goal is that by 2030 sport should be a normal thing for people with disabilities. The current practice is that we are “a long way from that”, according to SP MP Michel van Nissen.

Sorry, how bad is that, right?

The decision-making process on matters that everyone agrees on is often very slow. It is best to make a list of what still needs to be done. I just made this list, says Van Nispen. “It was because the topic was being discussed at election time, everybody agreed. But then, ‘Oh, how bad, isn’t it’—and we go through again. That’s no longer possible.”

Last year, a proposal was passed by D66 and SP to create a new resource fund and seek to create a single knowledge office. This is because tens of thousands of people with a physical disability do not receive proper help each year, because they are caught in a game between the insurance company and the municipality, where it is often unclear who should pay for the wheelchair or prosthesis.

Van Nispen: “This is definitely still a point of interest, and we want to expand the plans. This lending is also possible, for example, and for every kid to have a playground nearby to play sports. It’s a big package and I think it could be handled very well as a whole.”

special heroes

Last week, Minister Van Ark sent a letter to Parliament on the proposal submitted by D66 and SP, containing an overview of what had been achieved in the meantime. Fifty applications have been received from the resource fund, which opened in December. Only sixteen of them were completed. The minister is investigating why so few people are being helped.

In addition, the Special Heroes Netherlands Foundation is busy creating a knowledge meter for professionals, in order to comply with the other request of the SP and the D66. Erna Manin, director of the foundation, says she can submit the final report with recommendations on this between September and December. Studies have been carried out in the municipalities and three pilot projects are currently underway. One in The Hague, one in Emmen and one at the provincial level in Brabant. In The Hague, for example, there is a “mobility library”, where people who want to try a sport can also borrow equipment. We have already installed two or three sports prosthetics in Brabant.”

Van Nissen hopes that the new memo will once again emphasize the need to care for people with disabilities. He hopes to get responses from the ministry, but also from the state. “After the summer, we’ll have to see the messages we get.”

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“Frustration among athletes with disabilities about aid: Special fund not helping”

The government allocates one million people to help athletes with disabilities. There is no structural solution, says the Knowledge Center for Sports and Exercise.