Today is International Day of Persons with Disabilities.

To show our support for persons with disabilities, we would like to provide you with an update on what we have been working on this year and our plans for early 2024.

British Taekwondo has many reasons to celebrate International Day of Persons with Disabilities. We have many members with disabilities, who participate and coach on various levels in Taekwondo. Being involved in physical activity not only helps with physical strength but also contributes to mental and social development, wellbeing and offers a sense of belonging. This year we have sent two Para-Poomsae teams to international competitions, one in Mexico for the World Championships, and most recently, to Austria for the European Championships. We want to congratulate the successes of the athletes who attended.

Veracruz 2023 World Para Taekwondo Championships:

• Jane Bedford
• Bradley Brockies
• Samantha Carrington
• Summer Waheed

Innsbruck 2023 European Poomsae Para Taekwondo Championship:

• Jane Bedford
• Bradley Brockies
• Leon Lindsay
• Kelvin Lowe
• Ben Savage
• Gabrielle Toas
• Summer Waheed

Our Disability Development Officer, Annie, has been hard at work supporting many aspects of disabilities throughout the year. Here at British Taekwondo, we are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion in everything we do. We are working to ensure Taekwondo is accessible and open to all.

Since the appointment of our Disability Development Officer in June 2022 we have looked to engage with leading disability bodies to support our work and gain valuable information about our members. In September 2022 we launched our first disability survey, which was utilised to shape our strategy to support clubs to be fully inclusive by developing impairment specific Taekwondo resources. We are currently developing a range of supportive resources to help clubs offer an inclusive program. These will include impairment specific guidance, resources and links to CPD. These are all supported and developed in partnership with leading organisations. We are currently working with British Blind Sport, Cerebral Palsy Sport, UK Deaf Sport and the Dwarf Sports Association UK, which will be available early in 2024. Further resources such as flashcards, videos and CPD will also be launched next year. These will be found on our website when available.

We have also been working with target groups to understand how Taekwondo can be delivered to individuals with specific impairments, and evidence the impact the delivery has on them. Sessions were delivered to a physical impairment group (cerebral palsy), a visual impairment group and ALN/SEN group. The learnings from these sessions support the creation of resources and delivery frameworks to support specific impairment and inclusive Taekwondo. We are in the process of planning and implementing a Poomsae give-it-a-go session in February for people with Dwarfism, in collaboration with the Dwarf Sports Association UK. This is an exciting opportunity as British Taekwondo will be the first martial art-based sport who can provide safe, non-contact martial art activity to people with Dwarfism.

The disability support has continued through to our para-poomsae performance department. We have been developing a strategy to support the growth of grassroots para-activity to feed into the performance pathway. Further information on the refreshed pathway will be available on our website in early 2024. As part of our wider work to ensure we are delivering inclusive Taekwondo, we are working with leading disability bodies to ensure that we deliver inclusive events and support the needs of individuals at our events. We will continue to work to ensure that our events are fully inclusive, for all participants and spectators.

British Taekwondo National Poomsae Championships 2023

Veracruz 2023 World Para Taekwondo Championships

Innsbruck 2023 European Poomsae Para Taekwondo Championship

Get in touch

Please contact us if you have any questions or require support with regards to inclusive or adaptive Taekwondo. If you or your club are doing something with disabilities you think we should hear about, please contact Annie disability@britishtaekwondo.org or Richard media@britishtaekwondo.org

Find out more

For more information about International Day of Persons with Disabilities please visit the United Nations page.

Further information

You can read more about the organisations British Taekwondo is working with on the websites below:

You can also find further information on the Activity Alliance website.

Photos: submitted.