By Cian O'Connell

The Cork GAA For All initiative continues to deliver valuable and most worthwhile opportunities for children with disabilities.

Cork Sports Partnership, Rebel Og Coaching, and the GAA Health and Wellbeing department have all contributed have all contributed handsomely in the initial stages.

Three clubs in Cork – Killeagh, Midleton, and Clonakilty – are currently offering training sessions and the response has been positive.

On Sunday Killeagh’s youngsters returned to action with Liz Sinclair, the club’s Health and Wellbeing Officer, delighted that they are involved. “We were approached by Cork Sports Partnership,” Sinclair explains. “We are one of the Healthy Clubs within the GAA so we were asked to take it on under the Healthy Clubs umbrella.

“You have three clubs in Cork doing it - Clonakilty, Midleton, and ourselves. It started as a pilot scheme, definitely with Midleton and ourselves. We started it, we did six sessions earlier on in the year.

“It is for disability and inclusion training between Cork Sports Partnership, Healthy Clubs, Cork Sports, and the Rebel Og. We are getting support from all of those, they have provided us with all the training for it. We did the foundation training and disability and inclusion training and the safeguard training.”

So another six weeks of training is planned in Killeagh, who are eager to involve families in the initiative. “This will go on now until near Halloween,” Sinclair adds.

“Then we will probably take a break until January, depending on our numbers and how we are going. In the last session we had six kids who came to the training every week.

“Most of our children were very small, they were very young, all Under 10, while Midleton seemed to have attracted a different cohort altogether. They have teenagers so they were able to do different activities like the crossbar challenge and they can go outside with their kids.

“We are indoor all of the time. We do different little training sessions with them. We'd focus on things like balancing and ball control.

“Also things like little hurling activities, just basic stuff, but it is a huge outlet for them and their parents. We encourage the siblings to come too so they can be part of the group. We try to get the siblings involved as helpers so that they feel they have an important role in it.”

Collaborating with other clubs in the area and those already involved in the scheme such as Midleton and Clonakilty is critical for the sustainability of the project according to Sinclair, who carries out an important role in Killeagh.

“We'd like neighbouring clubs to come,” she admits. “Initially we had interest from areas a good bit away from us and we want to encourage the locals to come. It is open, I advertised it with schools picking maybe a seven or eight mile radius from the village. So those people wouldn't be club members.

“We had a meeting with Midleton, ourselves, and the co-ordinator for Cork Sport. We are having a session in Pairc Ui Chaoimh on September 28 where all of the kids will come to get a little tour. We will do activities and games with them and there will be a medal presentation too. Kids from the three clubs will all do that.”

Increasing the numbers, though, is what Killeagh are intending to do in the coming weeks and months.

“The reaction is good, but it has been slow enough too with the take up,” Sinclair states. “We know there is a high percentage of kids who aren't accessing and they probably aren't accessing anything.

“They are probably used to not being able to join in any activities or clubs or extra curricular stuff going on.

“So it is trying to break the mould for those kids to let people know there is something for them. We do hope that in these sessions that I'll get to Midleton to see what they are doing and that they will come out to Killeagh to see what we are doing.

“Then we will probably go to Clonakilty then together, Midleton and Killeagh. It would be interesting to see what we are all doing.

“Our kids seem to be the smallest. What you do with them is very limited, but they love it. More importantly their families absolutely love that there is something for their children to go, something different for them to be involved in.”

Sinclair is encouraged that significant emphasis is placed on the Healthy Clubs work in Killeagh. “It is a success, it is a springboard into other things,” she responds.

“It does make you more aware of other dimensions of the club besides the activities. Things like the mental health issues of kids and adults, it makes you more aware. Even things like healthy eating, just those type of aspects we try to look at.”