Her mission: Sport for all
Erin takes up new role
If Erin Fitzgerald doesn’t see her job helping disabled people into sport as a lifetime career, it’s not because of lack of commitment.
‘‘At the moment I’d be happy with that,’’ she said. ‘‘This is definitely what I like to be doing.’’
However, funding changes are the one constant of the world of sport and recreation.
Fitzgerald is the new disability sport adviser for Wellington and Hawke’s Bay for the Halberg Disability Sport Foundation and is based at the Pelorus Trust Sportshouse in Hutt Park.
She is one of 10 advisers in New Zealand who work with physically disabled young people and their families to get them involved in sports and recreation.
Part of her work is administrating the Halberg AllSports Activity Fund to help with sports equipment, lessons and assistance.
The foundation also provides No Exceptions Training nationally to help organisations adapt physical activity to include physically disabled young people.
Fitzgerald worked at Victoria University for the past three years.
Her proactive approach surprised many students when she went on to the campus to entice and cajole them to make use of the facilities that were available.
Now she takes the same approach to her new job, visiting sports clubs to help them to consider how they might adapt to include disabled young people.
‘‘How can we make this inclusive?’’ she said.
Fitzgerald plays soccer in the midfield for Petone, and said there were quite a few disabled people playing in mainstream football leagues.
She knew of a one- armed woman playing division one football.
‘‘She just doesn’t take throwins,’’ Fitzgerald said.
‘‘ There are nine others who can.’’
Hearing disabilities were not uncommon in football.
‘‘They [team-mates] have to talk to one another to let this person now what is going on, but that is something they have to do in the game anyway.’’
Club administrators need to talk to individuals to find out what they want, whether they want to be fully included in competitive play or just in practice situations.
If they are sight-impaired, a practice ball with a bell or some especially bright bibs might be all that is necessary.
‘‘What we want is more about inclusion rather than setting up a second sport and saying, ‘That is for you’,’’ Fitzgerald said.
‘‘The ideal goal is to have them automatically work out how they can be include included.’’
Fitzgerald also works with individuals.
‘‘If they need to see me I’ll go out and watch their sport and see how we can support them through the disability fund.’’
Every case is unique. ‘‘You can’t just say, ‘This person had a similar thing to you; this will work for you’,’’ she said.
She was looking forward to her people participating in the Round the Bays run this month and the Weet Bix Tryathlon in March.