II. Physical Activities for Persons with Disabilities Have Flourished
China regards rehabilitation and fitness activities for persons with disabilities as one of the main components in implementing its national strategies of Fitness-for-All, Healthy China initiative, and Building China into a Country Strong in Sports. By carrying out parasports activities across the whole country, enriching the content of such activities, improving sports services, and intensifying scientific research and education, China has encouraged the disabled to become more active participants in rehabilitation and fitness activities.
1. Physical activities for persons with disabilities are flourishing. At community level, a variety of rehabilitation and fitness activities for persons with disabilities have been organized, adapted to local conditions in urban and rural China. To promote the participation of persons with disabilities in grassroots fitness activities and competitive sports, China has extended rehabilitation activities and fitness sports services to communities through government procurement. The participation rate in grassroots cultural and sports activities for persons with disabilities in China has spiraled, from 6.8 percent in 2015 to 23.9 percent in 2021.
Schools at all levels and of all types have organized specially designed regular physical activities for their disabled students, and have promoted line dancing, cheerleading, dryland curling, and other group-based sports. College students and those in primary and secondary schools have been encouraged to participate in projects such as the Special Olympics University Program and in Special Olympics Unified Sports. Medical workers have been mobilized to engage in activities such as sports rehabilitation, para-athletics classification, and the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes program, and physical educators have been encouraged to participate in professional services such as physical fitness and sports training for the disabled, and to provide voluntary services for parasports.
China's National Games for Persons with Disabilities have incorporated rehabilitation and fitness events. The National Football Games for Persons with Disabilities have been held with multiple categories for persons with visual or hearing impairments or intellectual disabilities. Teams participating in the National Line Dancing Open Tournament for Persons with Disabilities now come from around 20 provinces and equivalent administrative units. A growing number of special education schools have made line dancing a physical activity for their main recess.
2. Parasports events are carried out nationwide. Persons with disabilities regularly participate in national parasports events, such as the National Special Olympics Day, Fitness Week for Persons with Disabilities, and Winter Sports Season for Persons with Disabilities. Since 2007, China has been organizing activities to popularize National Special Olympics Day, which falls on July 20 every year. Participation in the Special Olympics has tapped into the potential of persons with intellectual disabilities, improved their self-esteem, and brought them into the community. Since 2011, around the National Fitness Day each year, China has been organizing nationwide parasports activities to mark the Fitness Week for Persons with Disabilities, during which events such as wheelchair Tai Chi, Tai Chi ball, and blind football games have been held.
Through participating in rehabilitation and fitness events and activities, persons with disabilities have become more familiar with parasports, begun to take part in sports activities, and learned to use rehabilitation and fitness equipment. They have had the opportunity to demonstrate and exchange rehabilitation and fitness skills. Greater fitness and a more positive mindset have inspired their passion for life, and they have become more confident about integrating into society. Events such as the Wheelchair Marathon for the Disabled, the Chess Challenge among Blind Players, and the National Tai Chi Ball Championships for Persons with Hearing Impairments have developed into national parasports events.
3. Winter sports for persons with disabilities are on the rise. Every year since 2016 China has hosted a Winter Sports Season for Persons with Disabilities, providing them with a platform to participate in winter sports, and fulfilling the Beijing 2022 bid commitment of engaging 300 million people in winter sports. The scale of participation has expanded from 14 provincial-level units in the first Winter Sports Season to 31 provinces and equivalent administrative units. Various winter parasports activities suited to local conditions have been held, allowing participants to experience Paralympic Winter Games events, and take part in mass-participation winter sports, winter rehabilitation and fitness training camps, and ice and snow festivals. A variety of winter sports for mass participation have been created and promoted, such as mini skiing, dryland skiing, dryland curling, ice Cuju (a traditional Chinese game of competing for a ball on the ice rink), skating, sledding, sleighing, ice bikes, snow football, ice dragon boating, snow tug-of-war, and ice fishing. These novel and fun sports have proved very popular among persons with disabilities. In addition, availability of winter sports and fitness services for persons with disabilities at community level, and technical support, have been improved with the promulgation of materials such as A Guidebook on Winter Sports and Fitness Programs for Persons with Disabilities.
4. Rehabilitation and fitness services for persons with disabilities keep improving. China has introduced a series of measures to engage persons with disabilities in rehabilitation and physical activities, and to cultivate rehabilitation and fitness service teams. These include: launching a Self-improvement Fitness Project and a Sports Rehabilitation Care Plan, developing and promoting programs, methodology and equipment for rehabilitation and fitness of the disabled, enriching sports services and products for persons with disabilities, and promoting community-level fitness services for them and home-based rehabilitation services for persons with severe disabilities.
TheNational Basic Public Service Standards for Mass Sports (2021 Edition)and other national policies and regulations stipulate that the fitness environment for persons with disabilities is to be improved, and require that they have access to public facilities free of charge or at reduced prices. As of 2020, a total of 10,675 disabled-friendly sports venues had been built nationwide, a total of 125,000 instructors had been trained, and 434,000 households with severely disabled people had been provided with home-based rehabilitation and fitness services. Meanwhile, China has actively guided the construction of winter sports facilities for persons with disabilities with the focus on supporting less developed areas, townships and rural areas.
5. Progress has been made in parasports education and research. China has incorporated parasports in special education, teacher training, and physical education programs, and has accelerated the development of parasports research institutions. China Administration of Sports for Persons with Disabilities, the Sports Development Committee of the China Disability Research Society, together with parasports research institutions in many colleges and universities, form the main force in parasports education and research. A system for cultivating parasports talent has taken shape. Some universities and colleges have opened selective courses on parasports. A number of parasports professionals have been cultivated. Considerable progress has been made in parasports research. As of 2021, more than 20 parasports projects were being supported by the National Social Science Fund of China.
