Horsemanship and Disability

The EU Commission’s communication “European Disability Strategy 2010-2020: A Renewed Commitment to a Barrier-Free Europe” highlights the importance that disabled people fully take part in society and economy. “Full economic and social participation of people with disabilities is essential if the EU’s Europe 2020 strategy is to succeed in creating smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”. In line with the strategy, this project means to establish a small network of associations in order to promote the social inclusion of disabled people through sports riding.We want to involve local communities of partner organizations by means of an awareness raising campaign through posters and an Internet site. Also, we want to map out all associations which run horse sports activities with disabled people in the countries of the project. After a workshop in order to share good practices, in each country the project will be presented to the local community and the campaign will be launched. This project foresees a EU horse sports event with the participation of partner organizations and of the representatives of the associations running horse sports with disabled people. During the event, which will be open to public, there will be demonstrations of horse sports activities. The event will be the occasion for organizations to share their good practices and it will also be an opportunity to involve families and health and welfare bodies which deal with disabled people. A photo book will be published with pictures of the event and the good practices shared by the organizations. This project also foresees a closing seminar in Sassari (Italy) in order to present the project results and in order to set up the European Horse-Riding Network. After the closing seminar, all material realized by the project will be sent to EU associations in order to disseminate the project results and to promote good practices in horse-riding activities with disabled people.