A GROUP of visually-impaired and fully-sighted volunteers have returned from West Africa, where they supported people with disabilities as part of a project run by a York charity.

They spent eight weeks volunteering in rural Ghana with International Service on REACT, its pilot of a larger inclusive sports programme called Fair Play. The charity, based on Rougier Street, developed the project in partnership with ICS, a government-funded youth volunteering scheme.

Before heading out to Ghana, the volunteers took part in a training session in York delivered by Paralympic goalball player Georgie Bullen, who taught them how to play her sport so they could pass these skills on to people in Ghana.

Working with Georgie, the group trained and coached Ghanaian people to play goalball to tackle the stigma around disability.

Georgie said: “It’s been amazing to see this project through: from first toying with the idea of using sport as a tool for development, to going out to Ghana to see for myself the impact it’s had. Our final event was a goalball tournament between local teams and the National Ghanaian team, and seeing the level of support from families, schools and communities made everything come alive.”

In rural Ghana, the stigma around disability means that disabled people are kept out of school, jobs, and out of their community, according to International Service.

Sport is a way of bringing people together, and Paralympic sport is a way of raising awareness about visual impairment, the charity said.

The volunteers came back to York last week for a debrief at International Service’s office, to reflect on what they have achieved, and how programmes like REACT can be expanded to use more sports to reach more developing communities.

Goalball is a sport developed for blind and visually impaired players. Participants, in teams of three, try to throw a ball that has bells in it into the opponents’ goal.