Analysiss of disabled people access to sport in Kaunas

The mobility of the disabled person is under researched area and needed further investigation. Even though there are many schemes that are trying to help for people with mobility disabilities, the people with disabilities are not greatly involved into sports in Lithuania. The purpose of the paper- is to find what is missing for people with disabilities to have sporting abilities in the city of Kaunas. In order to find out these, the following were completed: 1) to introduce people with disabilities physical activities and overview the current situation 2) to find out the factors, that would encourage and increase the physical activities of people with disabilities 3) to oversee the problems, which can be faced by the people with disabilities in the gyms in the city of Kaunas. The academic paper consists of the introduction, 3 main paragraphs, conclusions and future recommendations and implications, references and appendixes. The literature review in the first part is about the relevant academic papers (the physical activity of people with disabilities in Lithuania and the sports history of the people with mobility disabilities). The second part of the paper will be the research, in which are conducted interviews with people with disabilities. Overall it is 148 interviews taken from people with disabilities. The results of the research are explained in the third part of the paper. Main issues and facts. It is evident from the in depth interviews, that the main motivational factors are competition and socializing ability. The inspiration for the disabled person to start doing sports is another disabled person in sports. It is evident from the interviews, that the most popular sports are wheelchair racing, volleyball (takes place in the nature); water sports are popular (swimming and diving). Also, disabled people like to go to the gym, play table tennis, basketball, and darts. In order to increase the sports activities between the disabled people, it was stated, that most influencing would be another disabled friend, who would start doing sports together. It is very important to have easier access to the sports halls and larger financial support by the government, as disabled people often lives on a lower income. Main issues: lack of motivation to get physically active, lack of self-confidence, the difficulty of access to the gyms. The main problem is that there are not enough gyms, which would be suitable for people with mobility disabilities; also it is not enough qualified couches and special equipment. Further recommendations-in order to increase the physical activity of people with mobility disabilities, it is recommended to implement it by 3 stages. First is to increase the ranges of sports for people with disabilities. Second, to keep people informed about what is offered. Last, is to have specifically trained couches, who would work with people with disabilities and encourage them