Children in Motion: Together is Better

What is success for a child? Getting good grades? Winning a soccer game with his/her buddies?  

 For Ilya from School #1679 in Moscow, real success was the ability to believe in himself. The 12 year-old boy is overweight and he is constantly being teased by his classmates. He had no friends and bad grades. Ilya was even shy about going to PE class as he was embarrassed to run with the other kids, and knew he would always come in last.  But when he went to other classes, he misbehaved.

 Everything changed when Tatiana, a teacher from Perspektiva’s sports project “Children in Motion, Together is Better”, suggested Ilya attend her after school sports program. The goal of the program is for children with different abilities to have fun playing sports together and to become more active. 

 The sports activities are adapted so that all kids can participate. Kids meet two times per week after classes to play team sports like volleyball and basketball. They also run and jump and learn to support each other while trying hard and having fun. There are no grades and each child can do the tasks at his/her own pace.   Kids learn to move in ways that are fun and to be supportive of each other. Finally, the program aims to motivate children to be active outside of their sports classes and children are given assignments to be active outside of school, eg they are encouraged to take the stairs instead of using the elevator, and to bike, walk or jog to school instead of taking public transportation.  At the beginning of each lesson the kids share with each other what they have done to be more active.  For more than a year Ilya has been an active participant of this program. 

 Tatiana, PE teacher: “Ilya has changed. Now, he is more responsible and more independent. His behavior has been great, and now all the other children are trying to imitate him!”

 After half a year of classes, Ilya went to Perspektiva’s Paralympic Sports Festival and participated in all of the sessions.   He loved it so much that after the Festival he became the person responsible for his class participating in a citywide project “Sports for All.” Ilya prepared a large presentation for the project and made all of the colorful posters himself.

 Ilya: “I made these posters because I thought it was important to talk about Paralympic sports. They ought to become popular”.

 Now, Ilya’s life is quite different from what it was a year ago.  He attends his regular PE classes and has lost weight.  But most importantly, he has friends at school, an after school activity he loves, and is motivated to study hard and get better grades.  Ilya loved going to the summer sports camp, organized by Perspektiva, where Ilya, who was once the outsider, was chosen as captain of his team.