Albania going from exclusion to inclusion

In November 2012, action was taken with the slogan “YES WE CAN," which consisted of a friendly wheelchair basketball match between a team from Albania and one from Kosovo.

Active Disabled People (ADP) Albania is an association that works to improve the quality of life for people with an impairment in Albania thought sport activities. It was founded in 2012 by a group of people with an impairment and is recognised by the Albanian state.

ADP Albania is a non-profit organisation led by people with an impairment and working for people with impairments focusing on sport activities. The legal representative of ADP Albania is Bledar Suxha, who is a wheelchair user.

Local sport clubs are an inclusive element of the work of the ADP Albania to ensure that people with an impairment have equal access to sport and physical activity across Albania. A

Albania is a country where the sport activities for people with impairments are unknown. Sport works to improve the inclusion and well-being of persons with impairments in two ways — by changing what communities think and feel about persons with impairments and by changing what persons with impairments think and feel about themselves.

The community impact and individual impact of sport help reduce the isolation of persons with impairments and integrates them more fully into community life. Through sport, persons without impairments encounter persons with impairments in a positive context (sometimes for the first time) and see them accomplish things they had previously thought impossible.

During 2012, which was the first year ADP went to each city in Albania, groups of people with impairments were brought together for wheelchair basketball in order to be included in the sport activities.

In November 2012, action was taken with the slogan “YES WE CAN," which consisted of a friendly wheelchair basketball match between a team from Albania and one from Kosovo.