[Sportsandrec] A question for you all

[Holly Scott-Gardner]

Hi everyone,

I'm from the UK, but I think this is something you'd all potentially be 
interested in. I'm going on a camp for blind students this summer, it's 
called ICC and mainly atracts European students but I know it's open to 
people from across the world. They do a lot of tech workshops as that's 
what it was traditionally based around but they've expanded the program 
to include sports workshops and other interests.

When participants signed up we weren't told that there were two lists of 
workshops, one for the totally blind and another for students with more 
vision. I can understand recommending certain workshops to people as 
some students will be using screen readers and others will be 
magnification users so that makes sense, but I'm concerned that they're 
also making this distinction when it comes down to vocational workshops.

One of my friends was going to sign up to a self-defence workshop. 
Another friend of ours is going and she asked if they would want to do 
it together. But the other friend, who is totally blind said she 
couldn't find that workshop on the online list. When they questioned the 
organisers they found out that self-defence is only open to participants 
who have more vision, not those who are totally blind.

This is really bothering us, the friend who has been told she can't do 
the workshop is a fencer and I do judo, it's not like we don't do 
sports. But my biggest concern is the attitude of the organisers, 
they're basically saying that people with the least vision are incapable 
of learning these skills. How are students meant to come away with a 
positive attitude if they are being told that because they are blind 
their potential is automatically lower? They are allowing us to do 
sports, like goalball, they see as specifically for the blind but not 
ones that we could adapt and would find interesting anyway.

I was wondering what you guys think, sorry for the very long email! I 
also sent it to this list because it's an access issue around sport, but 
if you think another list would benefit from seeing it let me know.

Holly