Disabled sport in Zimbabwe

The sessions are meant to prepare and strategise for impending completions that the teams from the club participate in locally, regionally and abroad.

But sadly, the future looks bleak for the determined disabled sportsmen and women of Qhubeko who are not able to mobilise resources for basic sporting equipment including uniforms.

Founded in Bulawayo in 1975 by the National Council of Disabled Persons of Zimbabwe, the sports club has 32 members who participate in sporting disciplines that include, wheelchair basketball, wheelchair tennis, wheelchair athletics, seating volleyball and other field activities

Remigious Mumbire the chairman of the club told The Zimbabwean on Sunday that that the teams are currently preparing for the annual Chibuku Paralympics to be held in September this year at Danhiko centre in Harare.

Resource constrains

The club has also started planning for participation in a much bigger competition, the all Africa Paralympic games set to take place in Mozambique in September 2011.

While the club is confident that at least 15 of its members will qualify for the all Africa games, there are doubts if they will manage to travel to Mozambique for the prestigious competition due to resource constrains.

We have strong athletes and we will not fail to qualify for the all Africa games in Mozambique next year. One of our best athletes is Moline Muza who took part in the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing China where she came fifth in Javelin, said Mumbire.

The teams have been competing without uniforms for the past three years. We participated at the paralympic games at Sakubva Stadium in Mutare last month without a uniform and it appeared we were the only club not in uniform at that competition and it was very embarrassing.

Elliot Mujaji

Mumbire feels that people do not take sports for the disabled seriously especially the community of Bulawayo. They dont seem to realise that people with disabilities can make a living through sport like Elliot Mujaji who enjoys good support from the community of Zvishavane.

In 1998 Elliot Mujaji, a member of the Zimbabwe National Athletics team qualified to compete at the 1998 Commonwealth Games before suffering severe burns in an electrical accident at work.

He had his right arm amputated and was in a coma for two months. Mujaji resumed training upon recovering and qualified for the 2000 summer paralympics in Sidney and won a gold medal in the 100-metre event. He won another gold in Athens 2004 in the same category.

Since then Mujaji has never looked back and continues to fly the flag of Zimbabwe at various international competitions.

With the achievements of Mujaji setting an example of what disabled people could do, many Zimbabweans including some senior government officials have been quick to urge the country to rally behind all its sportsmen and women whether disabled or not.

For example Vice President John Nkomo last week the governments support to the development of sport for people with disabilities.

Citing Mujaji as a role model for upcoming Zimbabwean sports women and men. Nkomo called for a review of legislation the Disabled Persons Act to make the law serve as platform that could enable people with disabilities to access more opportunities and resources to develop themselves either in sport or in other disciplines.

Material support

But promises of help by government leaders and other Zimbabweans have not always translated into material support for disabled sports people.

For example, a special type of wheelchair is required to enable people with disabilities to take part in various wheelchair-based sporting disciplines, but the only wheelchairs of this special type that Qhubeko is using were donated to the club by some well-wishers when the club was formed in 1975.

According to Mumbire the special wheelchairs are not available locally and can only be sourced from foreign manufacturers, an exercise requiring significant sums of money that most disabled people or their clubs cannot afford.

At Qhubeko, Mumbire and his colleagues have resorted to using the ordinary wheelchairs for sport because most of those donated 35 years ago are broken down.

Most of us now use our own utility wheelchairs, most of which are the rigid hospital wheelchairs, that are not suitable for the games, and often they get damaged during the games, resulting in some of the members getting grounded and failing to go to work, he said.

Mumbire called on Bulawayo residents to help his club acquire special wheelchairs for races and other sports.

We appeal for support from the Bulawayo community. We are trying to raise at least 10 special wheelchairs for basketball and six for wheelchair races. Only after that can we start working on introducing wheelchair rugby to catch up with the rest of the world, he said.

But with Zimbabwe still trying to emerge from a decade of acute recession that left many people out of work and most companies with little or no cash to spare for social causes, Mumbire and his Qhubeko colleagues might have to wait a little longer before any help comes their way.