The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) together with the former star of basketball United States Jess Markt, who in 1996 suffered a serious spinal cord injury when he was 19 years old, began a training course for Guatemalan wheelchair players on Wednesday.
This is the first time that the training camp has been held in a Latin American country and there will be twenty players from Guatemala in wheelchairs who will be present at the activity with the aim of improving their technique.
The International Committee of the Red Cross explained, in a statement, that this course aims to promote social inclusion and resilience, part of its program to mitigate the consequences of violence.
«This is an activity with history. It has been held in places like Afghanistan, South Sudan or Gaza and for the first time we are bringing it to Latin America, “said Kian Abbassian, head of the mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Guatemala.
In this sense, Abbassian expressed his desire that this sporting activity serve “as a basis to promote the integration into society of people who are admirable and build day by day, with their effort, their life plans, physical rehabilitation and re-socialization ».
The twenty players participating in the camp are originally from Antigua Guatemala, Cobán and Petén and from the southern municipality of Villa Nueva.
The camp, he said, is dedicated to the memory of Lorena Enebral Pérez, a physiotherapist for the Committee who lost her life in Afghanistan in 2017 while carrying out her humanitarian work.
The training, which will last until next Tuesday, is accompanied by Jess Markt, a sports and inclusion advisor from the institution dedicated to promoting sports among people with disabilities.
Mark, 43, suffered a serious spinal cord injury at age 19 (1996) and took four years to recover, although he soon joined the first team of basketball from Portland, Oregon, where he spent the nine years winning competitions and growing as a player to become a star.
In 2009 he was contacted by the International Committee of the Red Cross to become a coach of a team in Afghanistan and align his sporting pursuits with humanitarian work, which has led him to train wheelchair athletes in Cambodia, India, Sudan. the South, and Ethiopia.
«I am very happy to have been able to get to Guatemala. I know that there are many challenges here for those, like me, who have had to go through a physical rehabilitation process and are in a wheelchair, “he commented.
Opening the camp, Mark acknowledged the complexity of rebuilding “lives and enjoying independence and confidence,” but his message is that “this can be done and that sport is an ideal medium for it.”
The training takes place in a gym of the General Directorate of Physical Education of the Ministry of Education and will conclude next Monday and Tuesday, in the gym of the Erick Barrondo Park, of the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
In Guatemala there are already nine teams of basketball with approximately 72 participants in the metropolitan area of the country’s capital and many of them have been victims of violence.
The institution highlighted that group dynamics such as the basketball They are resilience mechanisms of non-formal education that allow the development of different capacities, increase confidence and face a process of re-socialization with greater possibilities of success. EFE / Photo by @USembassyMadrid