The opening of a first-ever wheelchair sports centre in Cambodia’s Siem Reap continues to receive the support of duty free and travel retail.

Part of the XLability programme backed by the Soulcial Trust and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the new centre fosters social integration for people with disabilities while raising awareness of the challenges they face in everyday life.

Twenty wheelchair basketball players from the Siem Reap province arrived for the first training session, with participants involved with local disability NGOs’ Angkor Association for the Disabled (AAD), Khmer Independent Life Team (KILT) and Geneviève’s Fair Trade Village.

Weekly sessions will now take place on Friday evenings at the ICF Campus behind the Phum Baitang Hotel. The ICRC will also send players from the ladies’ wheelchair basketball team in Battambang to help train the Siem Reap players every two weeks.

MORE SPORTS TO FOLLOW?

As reported, the duty free industry is lending its support to a tri-nation wheelchair sports exchange programme that brings together rugby and basketball wheelchair sports teams from France, India and Cambodia.

The project, which involves coaching by participating teams in wheelchair sports such as rugby, basketball and tennis, has attracted wheelchair rugby sides Stade Toulon, Stade Toulousain, Montpellier Sharks, Delhi Warriors and the aforementioned women’s wheelchair basketball team from battambang in Cambodia.

A two-week training event is also being arranged for November, which includes a “classifier” affiliated with the International Wheelchair Rugby Association to aid the training and classification of Cambodian players.

As part of the exchange programme, the wheelchair basketball players will provide training on their discipline to French and Indian rugby players.

“While this first training session is focused on wheelchair basketball, it is our hope that we can soon introduce other sports such as wheelchair rugby, tennis and volleyball,” said Genni Low, Programmes Director at the Soulcial Trust.

Michael Barrett, Director of The Soulcial Trust and Executive Officer APTRA added: “We are grateful to have this collaboration with the ICRC and the ICF, which made this all possible. We welcome others to join us, whether it is an individual who is able bodied, or people with a disability, anyone interested in joining wheelchair sports can become a part of the game”.

Swiss research agency m1nd-set and Indian distribution company BBM Bommidala Group have already signed up to support the programme.

For further information and to support the initiative, contact Genni Low:

[email protected]

+855 61 221 105