A year ago today

A year ago today I was at the Paralympic games as a volunteer, initially I was part of the Paralympic famiy assistant programme, but when it became apparent some of the smaller countries werent going to use the programme, I was given the chance to transfer to the Paralympic Village.

On my first day in the village( it was day 8 of my paralympic games experience) they asked me how long I could commit to, with that information I was assigned to the Jordanian Paralympic delegation. This consisted of 9 athetes, 3 coaches, a doctor a chef de mission, an aide( who was actually the chef because he could speak english and my boss effectively) and 4 members of the Jordanian royal family with associated royal protection squad.

                  This picture shows 2 of the table tennis athletes with some of the delegation( doctor,coach and The chef)


This experience truly changed my life, and I don't say this half heartedly. In many ways it was a catalyst to help me move on from the military in a " theres more to life " type way. It became apparent that there are no wheelchair maintenance facilities in the Middle East and all of my athletes had had to fly half way around the world just to get a sports wheelchair.
Now there is a company out there called Ottobock, they are a wheelchair and prosthetics maintenance professional, they travel to major competitions ( like the paralympics) to repair wheelchairs and service prosthetics. Some wheelchairs though are beyond Ottobocks magic touch. Some of my delegations chairs were in this category and so I set out to find some wheelchairs in a better state that Ottobock could fix and that my delegaton could use....unbeknown to me some of my National Paralympic service assistants were trying to do the same. Two of the Ivory Coast NPCAs Dermot and Tariq, were already making makeshift starting blocks for amputees and trying to source chairs for their delegation.By pooling our resources, Tarriq co ordinated the exchange of 22 wheelchairs, including two of our delegations chairs...but this only seemed to be a scratch on the surface and we all met together, I was introduced to Alex mitchell, and we discussed how shabby some of the athletes basic equipment was. Kit Us Out was born right there, Alex has amazing media contacts and Dermot touched base with some of the larger delegations and we set about begging for some of their equipment and distributing it to the athletes that needed it...by the end of the games we had distributed new equipment to over 40 para athletes...

 

 This is Ananias Shikongo from Namibia, he is partially sighted and has to have a guide we kitted out 8 athletes from Namibia and Ananias got a Silver and a Bronze medal at the  world championships.

You need to click on the link now....because our legacy equated for one country that had never won any medals to three at the paraympic games and another 8 at the Word championships and the job is not yet done..We are ensuring that by giving the para athletes the equipment they need, it levels the playing field and makes that discipline about ability...and that is what we are about... to date we have equipped 59 athletes from 60 different countries....

Here we all are, Dermot, me,Matt Dimbylow (Captain of Paralympic GB Football team),Tariq and Alex..We may all be totally different personalities and have different backgrounds, but our combined strengths and determination to level the playing field with the provision of basic sports equipment fills me with joy. Once more the power of poppy and purple....