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| Feature | No.61 May 2011 |

Youth, Disability and the Use of Sport in African Post-conflict Zones
Ian Brittain
Introduction
There is a steadily growing body of research regarding the significance of non-disabled sport within society and the potential impacts it can have, particularly in terms of developing `better` citizens in terms of health, behaviour and productivity (cf. Coalter, 2007). There is also a growing body of work regarding the use of sport for the non-disabled in conflict zones as a means of development and brokering peace. However, there appears to be little work which addresses these issues with regard to the use of sport for the disabled and the role it might play both in the re-integration into society of people with disabilities and the impact it can have upon changing perceptions of people with disabilities within the wider community and thus aiding the re-integration process. There appears to be some attempts to use sports for the rehabilitation of youth with disabilities in places such as Sierra Leone and Liberia where they play amputee football, but what is lacking is a comprehensive understanding of the potential of sport in responding to the challenges faced by youth with physical disabilities in post-conflict zones.
Over the last three decades, there have been numerous civil wars and conflicts erupting on the African continent including those in Angola, Algeria, Burundi, Congo, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Eritrea/Ethiopia, Liberia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and South Sudan/Darfur, Uganda and Zimbabwe. Recent events in North Africa and the Middle East and post-election violence in Kenya mean that Egypt, Kenya, Libya and Tunisia can be added to this list. Some of the consequences of these conflicts, and their impacts on people with disabilities, are highlighted below.
The Challenges
The Department for International Development (DFID) in the United Kingdom (UK) broadly defines social exclusion as a process by which certain groups are systematically disadvantaged because they are discriminated against on the basis of their ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, caste, descent, gender, age, disability, HIV status, migrant status or where they live (2005: p.3). Discrimination occurs in public institutions, such as the legal system or education and health services, as well as social institutions like the household. Moreover, it is considered as a priority because it both causes poverty and impedes poverty reduction; however, poverty reduction policies rarely reach socially excluded groups unless they are specifically designed to include them. According to DFID, social exclusion is a leading cause of conflict and insecurity. Indeed, Maclay and Özerdem (2010) claim that youth participation in Liberia`s conflict was largely fuelled by this marginalised status, and by a disconnection from broader society. A World Bank (2006) report concludes by highlighting the need to address youth marginalisation, particularly through ensuring youth participation in the planning and implementation of youth-orientated programmes, and warns that continued exclusion could force young people to once again resort to violence.
One of the main impacts of armed conflict is that there is a high level of disabilities caused by small arms and light weapons (SALW), including anti-personnel landmines. Youth, both as civilians and combatants, appear to be one of the most affected groups who become disabled, and it is often the case that there are no adequate socio-economic services and opportunities in post-conflict environments to help deal with the many issues raised by these conflict-induced disabilities. However, research relating to the impact of conflict induced disability, particularly with regard to children, is scarce, although this may be partly due to the difficulties of carrying out research in the often challenging situation of a post-conflict society. Indeed, it is equally important not to overlook the issues for those who received their disabilities as a result of accidents or birth defects, otherwise there would be a risk of further marginalising an already marginalised group. People, and particularly children, with disabilities do not have equal opportunities and equal access regarding most parts of life. Handicap International claim this lack of access includes basic services (especially education and health), because of physical inaccessibility to the buildings, lack of information in adapted formats (e.g. Braille) and discriminatory behaviour within society. In addition, individuals with disabilities tend to suffer disproportionately during and after conflict situations have occurred. They are often the most exposed to protection risks, including physical and sexual violence, exploitation, harassment and discrimination (Reilly, 2010). This is particularly true for females. Research by the United Nations indicates that violence against children with disabilities occurs at annual rates at least 1.7 times greater than for their non-disabled peers. Finally, they also lack options for making a living and, therefore, the opportunity to transcend out of poverty, which often means they either remain as a burden on their families or are forced to beg to make a living. Disability and poverty are also closely linked with insecure living conditions, lack of access to basic services, malnutrition and other dimensions of poverty not only leading directly to disabilities, but also making life much harder for those who are born with or acquire disabilities through accidents or as a result of conflict. Add to these facts the issue of the perceived stigma attached not only to the person with a disability, but also their families, which can cause parents to try and conceal their disabled children, and it is clear that life for a person with a disability in former conflict zones in Africa is very difficult indeed. The rehabilitation of children with conflict-induced disabilities needs to bear in mind a set of additional issues such as the context of poverty, social stigma, cultural values and traditions prevalent within the society under investigation. Moreover, as there are always many priorities for reconstruction in post-conflict affected environments, and people with disabilities and particularly children are far less likely to have access to decision making processes, means of production and financial capital, they tend to be further marginalised within society.
One further issue for people with disabilities in conflict zones is that they often become displaced from their villages and local communities, either forcibly or out of fear for their own safety and often end up in internal displacement camps, where conditions are often far from ideal to meet their needs. However, once the resettlement process is underway, the devastation caused by the conflict in terms of the destruction of villages and infrastructure, often means that people with disabilities are one of the hardest groups to re-settle. They also often meet other people with disabilities in the camps that enable them to achieve some sort of camaraderie, which is often preferable to the isolation they can feel in their own villages where they can be shunned or stigmatised by their acquired disability (Duerden, 2010).
Estimating accurate numbers for the disabled population in a given country in a post-conflict situation is often almost impossible. A lack of consistency in terminology and methodologies for data collection, cultural differences in definitions and concepts of disability, and lack of training or disability awareness amongst data collection staff will all affect the accuracy of the data. This is also compounded by some of the issues highlighted above regarding stigma and the hiding away of the people with disabilities, difficulties of researching in isolated (and sometimes dangerous) rural areas and the general administrative and bureaucratic chaos that follows a prolonged conflict situation. In short, life for children and youth with disabilities in a post-conflict environment often means marginalisation, exclusion, disparity, poverty and ostracisation. It is, therefore, very important for them to have opportunities to address these challenges. Sport can be a low-cost and effective means to foster positive health and well-being, social inclusion and community building for people with a disability.
The Benefits of Sport
Sir Ludwig Guttmann (1976; pp. 12-13), internationally recognised founder of the modern day Paralympic movement highlighted three main areas in which participation in sport could benefit people with disabilities:
1. Sport as a Curative Factor
According to Guttmann, sport represents the most natural form of remedial exercise and can be used to successfully complement other forms of remedial exercise. Sport can be invaluable in restoring the overall fitness, including strength, speed, co-ordination and endurance, of someone receiving a disabling injury. Tasiemski, Bergstrom, Savic and Gardner (1998) point out how sport can be of particular benefit to individuals with certain disabilities. Following a pilot study on individuals recovering from a spinal cord lesion, they state:
"Systematically practised physical activity and sports allows the disabled person to keep the high level of physical fitness that was obtained during rehabilitation. It also helps to maintain compensatory processes and prevent complications caused by inactivity. Physical activity and sports are amongst the most important factors that determine the effectiveness and final outcomes of physical rehabilitation."
(Tasiemski et al., 1998; unpublished)
They also found that the frequency of hospital readmissions per year following discharge was three times less in athletes than it was in non-athletes, adding weight to their claim that those involved in activities away from the home, especially physical ones such as sport, are physically fitter, more independent and have fewer avoidable complications.
2. The Recreational and Psychological Value of Sport
Guttmann claims that the big advantage of sport for the disabled over other remedial exercises lies within its recreational value in that it restores `that passion for playful activity and the desire to experience joy and pleasure in life, so deeply inherent in any human being` (1976; p. 12). Guttmann also points out that much of the restorative power of sport is lost if the person with the disability does not enjoy their participation in it. As long as enjoyment is derived from the activity, then sport can help develop an active mind, self-confidence, self-dignity, self-discipline, competitive spirit and camaraderie, all of which are essential in helping to overcome the all-consuming depression that can occur with sudden traumatic disability.
3. Sport as a means of Social Re-integration
There are certain sports where people with disabilities are capable of competing alongside their non-disabled peers e.g. archery, bowls, table tennis, as Neroli Fairhall of New Zealand proved when she competed from a wheelchair in archery at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. This helps create a better understanding between people with disabilities and their non-disabled peers and aids in their social re-integration through the medium of sport.
More recent research in the field appears to continue to add credence to Guttmann`s claims. Berger (2008) claims that the benefits gained by participation in sport include improved physical conditioning and a sense of bodily mastery, along with a heightened sense of self-esteem and personal empowerment that spills over into other social pursuits (p. 650). These comments appear to concur with the findings of Sporner et al (2009) who investigated the psychosocial impact of participation in the 2006 National Veterans Wheelchair Games and Winter Sports Clinic for 132 veterans with disabilities. Key findings included that 84% felt that participation in these events led them to a greater acceptance of their own disabilities and 77.1% felt it led to their own greater participation in society.
There are examples of this process at work for children with disabilities in former African conflict zones, although such examples are few and far between. PlayAble, an organisation based in the Netherlands, works on sporting projects with children with disabilities in Kenya, Mozambique and Uganda. They work not only with the children, but also train coaches and try to involve the local community as much as possible. As an example of the potential impact of sport for children with disabilities on the re-integration process, they cite the following case:
`Ismail is one of the coaches who manage to use the platform of sport as a powerful tool to spread positive messages about the rights and abilities of people with disabilities. In one of the slum areas in Nairobi (Kenya), outreach activities for children with all abilities were organised every other week. Some of these children had to be picked up from their homes where parents locked them up in fear of discrimination and sexual abuse. Since the activities were new and novel, community members came to watch and the coaches also invited teachers from a local school and the local governor. After a couple of activities they sat together to talk about the right of education. Once they had seen and realised the great abilities of the children, they together decided to open a special unit in the local school to allow 20 children with disabilities to enrol in the school`. (PlayAble Website, 2011)
Conclusive Statement
I will conclude with a short example from one of the African post-conflict zones.
An Example from an African Post-Conflict Zone: Sierra Leone
Between 1991 and 2001, about 50 000 people were killed in Sierra Leone`s civil war. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes, and many became refugees in Guinea and Liberia. In 2001, UN forces moved into rebel-held areas and began to disarm rebel soldiers. By January 2002, the war was declared over. By 2004, the DDR (disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration) process was complete. However, throughout the ten years of civil war, many thousands of people, both combatants and non-combatants, suffered disabling injuries as a result of the conflict. This includes many youths (children at the time) who, in most cases, were forced to become child soldiers and either became injured in combat or had limbs hacked off for disobeying orders or even just as a warning to others. Add to this those people born with birth defects due to the severe poverty and those disabled by accidents, then the number of disabled youth in Sierra Leone becomes disproportionately high compared to other countries that have not undergone a recent conflict. Trani, Bah, Bailey, Browne, Grace and Kett (2009; p.13) claim research by UNICEF in 2005 estimated that the prevalence of disability in Sierra Leone could be as high as 24% for children.
According to Gottschalk (2007) the common greeting in Sierra Leone is `How de Body?` which she claims reflects a culture that places its social and communal identity in the physical realm. According to Heeren (2003) amputees have reported that they feel rejected by society in post-conflict Sierra Leone because the public does not want to be reminded of what they have done to them. The introduction of amputee football has had a major impact upon these perceptions by changing attitudes towards individuals with amputees and thus giving them back a sense of self-respect. In addition, the use of mixed-tribal teams has helped break down, or at least blur, some of the lines of conflict along which the original war was fought. However, this only deals with amputees, and only single amputees at that (i.e. one limb). Other impairments such as paralysis or visually impairments are still to a large degree overlooked and so there are still many opportunities for sport to be used as a re-integration tool for people with disabilities all over Africa.

References
Berger, R.J., 2008, Disability and the Dedicated Wheelchair Athlete: Beyond the “Supercrip” Critique, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 37 (6); p. 647 – 678.
Coalter, F. (2007). A wider social role for sport: who`s keeping the score? Routledge, UK.
DFID (2005). Reducing poverty by tackling social exclusion, Department for International Development, London.
Duerden, S. (2010). Displacement limbo in Sierra Leone. Available at: (www.fmreview.org/disability/Duerden.doc). (accessed 15th September 2010).
Gottschalk, P. (2007). “How are we in this world now?” Examining the experiences of persons disabled by war in the peace processes of Sierra Leone, Unpublished Masters thesis, University of Victoria, Canada.
Guttmann, L. (1976). Textbook of Sport for the Disabled, Alden Press, Oxford.
Handicap International (undated) Position Statement-Disability and PRS in Liberia. Available at: (www.handicap-international.fr/...handicap/4PolitiqueHandicap/.../Position_paper_liberia.doc). (accessed 15th September 2010).
Heeren, N. (2003). Sierra Leone and civil war: Neglected trauma and forgotten children, Revue Humanitaire, Vol. 9, Medicins du Monde, Paris.
Maclay, C. & Özerdem, A. (2010). `Use` Them or `Lose` Them: Engaging Liberia`s Disconnected Youth through Socio-political Integration in International Peacekeeping, Vol.17 (3): 344–361.
Reilly, R. (2010). Disabilities among refugees and conflict-affected populations Available at: (http://www.fmreview.org/disability/FMR35/08-10.pdf). (accessed 15th September 2010).
Sporner, M.L., Fitzgerald, S.G., Dicianno, B.E., Collins, D., Teodorski, E., Pasquina, P.F. & Cooper, R.A., 2009, Psychosocial impact of participation in the National Veterans Games and Winter Sports Clinic, Disability and Rehabilitation, Vol. 31(5); p. 410 – 418.
Tasiemski, T., Bergstrom, E., Savic, G. & Gardner, B. P. (1998). Sports, Recreation and Employment Following Spinal Cord Injury – a Pilot Study, (Unpublished).
Trani, J-F., Bah, O., Bailey, N., Browne, J., Grace, N. & Kett, M., (2009). Disability: In and Around Urban Areas of Sierra Leone, Leonard Cheshire and University College London, UK.
United Nations (undated). Factsheet on Persons with Disabilities.
Available at: (http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=18). (accessed 15th September 2010).
The World Bank Group (2006). Govment bizness na wi bizness: Building demand for good governance and enhancing conditions for social accountability in Sierra Leone.

Contact
Dr. Ian Brittain
Coventry University
Coventry, United Kingdom
Email: Ian.brittain@coventry.ac.uk

http://www.icsspe.org/