For all a sporting chance

With London winning the bid to host the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012, and a growing recognition of the need to tackle increased childhood obesity, the need to encourage today’s children to get involved in sport has been brought to the fore.

Sport is not only an enjoyable and healthy pastime, it also promotes positive social interaction and helps to raise self-esteem. Of course there are other benefits: the more children engage in sport, the more likely we are to find our Olympic and Paralympic heroes of the future.

Norwich Union has been supporting UK Athletics since its inception in 1999, and recently announced its commitment to continue sponsoring the sport of athletics until 2012 in a deal worth nearly £50m. It is the largest sports sponsorship deal in the UK outside football and will revolutionise the sport at every level, giving UK Athletics the resources to build on what is already a strong foundation.

To date a massive 20% of Norwich Union’s funding has been invested in

four grassroots development programmes:

Agility:challenge, Shine:awards, Star:track and Sports:hall. These have given over one million children a year the opportunity to enjoy athletics and become the athletes of tomorrow, whilst encouraging positive life skills such as concentration, discipline and teamwork. By 2012 Norwich Union will reach over 10 million children, 1.5 million families and 100,000 teachers, drawn together from almost every school across the UK, through its initiatives.

In January 2005 Norwich Union agreed a three-year partnership, worth £300,000, with WheelPower — British Wheelchair Sport, complementing Norwich Union’s sponsorship of UK Athletics.

Based at Stoke Mandeville Stadium, the host of the 1984 Paralympic Games, WheelPower is the national charity for wheelchair sport and provides sporting opportunities which transform the lives of children and adults with disabilities. Through participating and competing in sport

many people whose lives have been traumatically changed can enjoy tremendous physical and psychological benefits. Focusing on something a person with a disability can do — and potentially excel in — increases their confidence and can develop a positive outlook that can influence other areas of their life.

The organisation was founded by the late Professor Sir Ludwig Guttmann, who revolutionised the treatment of people with spinal cord injuries at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in the late 1940s. Guttmann began using sport as a vital part of the rehabilitation of Second World War veterans, and in 1948 he set up a competition between sports clubs and other hospitals to coincide with the 1948 Olympic Games in London.

With Norwich Union’s funding, WheelPower provides an essential new initiative — the Norwich Union Junior Heroes Programme. The programme aims to introduce young people with disabilities to sport, and consists of a series of primary and junior sports camps for children aged six to eighteen held across the UK, and an annual National Junior Games competition in September.

Primary Camps are for children between the age of six and eleven, and Junior Camps for children between eleven and eighteen. The Sports Camps are open to children with physical or mild sensor impairments. Children with conditions that do not traditionally fit within ‘disability sport classification’, such as dyspraxia, epilepsy or some form of internal organ dysfunction or absence, are also able to take part.

This broader definition aims to make some form of provision for those children who are unable to fit into mainstream physical education/sport provision but who also do not qualify for disability provision.

In 2005, 411 disabled children from 26 schools and seven sports clubs had the opportunity to try different sports in a positive and encouraging environment through the Norwich Union Junior Heroes Programme.

During 2006 there will be a series of Primary and Junior Sports Camps, along

with the National Junior Games. The first regional Primary Sports Camp of 2006 was held at Manchester in May during the week of the Paralympic World Cup.

Over 40 children from the Manchester area experienced a range of sports including hand-cycling, wheelchair basketball and athletics — all sports that feature in the Paralympic World Cup. Further Camps are planned in 2006 for York, Nottingham, Birmingham and Stoke Mandeville.

The National Junior Games is a five-day event which takes place in September this year at Stoke Mandeville, the birthplace of the Paralympic Games. The National Junior Games are a great celebration of sporting endeavour as our paralympians of the future compete for medals in sports

such as field athletics, shooting, curling and fencing. Alongside the competition, children are encouraged

to try other sports, including table cricket, polybat, hand-cycling and weightlifting.

At the 2005 Games, in addition to competing in a range of sports, the children were also given some top tips from Paralympic wheelchair basketball star Ade Adepitan and Great Britain Team athlete Christian Malcolm. It was at Stoke Mandeville Stadium that Ade Adepitan started out, competing in several wheelchair sports, at the National Junior Games.

Since then he has gone on to represent Great Britain at the Paralympics in Athens in 2004, where his team won a Bronze medal, and in Sydney in 2000, as well as competing in the European and World Championships (winning Silver and Gold respectively). In 2005 he was awarded an MBE for his services to disabled sport.

Norwich Union encourages its employees to get involved with the WheelPower partnership by volunteering to help out at Sports Camps. The volunteers learn about the needs of children with disabilities participating in sporting activities and are encouraged to have a go at some of the sports the children will be doing at the events. All the volunteers find their involvement a rewarding experience — giving something back to the community and encouraging children with disabilities who often do not get the same sporting opportunities as their non-disabled peers.

Taking part in sport is an excellent way to maintain a healthy lifestyle, especially for children with disabilities. It instils confidence, builds physical strength and can often lead to significant improvement in quality of life. Just as importantly, sport is a sociable and fun way to make new friends and lead an active lifestyle.

Norwich Union is proud to sponsor WheelPower — British Wheelchair Sport and is looking forward to a successful 2006 for the Junior Heroes Programme, encouraging children with disabilities throughout the UK to take part in sport and perhaps even finding Paralympic heroes of tomorrow.

WheelPower is one of four key charities Norwich Union is working with until 2007. The others are NCH, the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Breatkthrough Breast Cancer. In addition, the Norwich Union staff charity of the year 2006 is the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign.

The corporate charity partnerships are part of Norwich Union’s wider commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility. To contact the CSR team, send an email to: gcsr@norwich-union.co.uk