The Paralympics may be weeks away, but Newcastle's own athletes with disabilities will be in action from Friday as part of a new sport inclusion festival.
City of Newcastle launched the Count Us In Sport festival on Thursday. The event includes free activities aimed at celebrating and increasing sport participation for local people living with disabilities, including an inaugural sport forum headlined by former Newcastle Knight Alex McKinnon and Paralympian Rae Anderson.
Count Us In festival has run for five years, but the council's Access Inclusion Advisory Committee co-chair councillor Margaret Wood said this was the first time the festival had a sport focus.
"It's a great opportunity to do this when we've got the Paralympics coming up," Cr Wood said. "Everybody's thinking sport at the moment, so this is a great way of tying in our message that people with a disability participate in sport at elite levels and we want them to do it at a community level as well."
The first event on the program is a come-and-try sport day on Friday, which NDIS provider Healthy Change Challenge has participants taking part in.
Participants Chris Berends and Sarina Hibbert showed off their skills ahead of the sport day. Soccer and footy fan Chris said he had been loving watching the Olympics, while Sarina enjoys taking part in basketball, karate and bowls.
Northern NSW Football will have a station set up on Friday. Female participation and inclusion officer Natalie Boyd said it would allow people with disabilities to get a taste of sport in a relaxed environment.
"I think sport is just that chance to have a community and to belong," she said. "So it's important that as sports progress, there's more and more opportunities for people to be able to join in."
Cr Wood said there were already groups and clubs "doing great work" to include people of all abilities.
"It's not about having necessarily disability specific versions of a sport, but embedding in the main part, the life of the club," she said.
"The thing about disability is that it can be very isolating and it can be the case for some people with a disability that the only people they see on a regular basis are paid support workers or other people with a disability at a day program.
"And what we are saying is that you are members of our community and we want to embrace you and we want you to lead the kind of life that you really want to lead."
