Over DCT
The International Association for Handicapped Divers (IAHD) presents the Dive Challenge Tour. Our mission is to make scuba diving accessible for disabled people. Primarily we do this by training diving professionals how they can teach handicapped people to dive. Key words of our organization are: integration, recreation and rehabilitation.
The objectives of this project are providing more information, promotion and support to disabled people about scuba diving. To raise the awareness we will organize the Dive Challenge Tour to inform people about the possibilities, challenges and characteristics of diving with a handicap. But we also want to inform diving professionals, members of diving clubs and staff of rehabilitation centers.
The idea is to organize the Dive Challenge Tour on several locations in a country. These locations can be a recreation park, a dive center, a rehabilitation center or even the pool of a University or confined open water. As every location is different each Dive Challenge will be considered as a sub-project. The concept of this project is flexible and can easily be modified.
For instance: the original plan is to run an IAHD ITC at the same time as we are having the DCT. The practical part of the ITC coincides with the introduction dives of disabled people that are interested/challenged to dive. In some countries diving professionals can, therefore, benefit from a special training fee during the Dive Challenge Tour and disabled people are given the opportunity of a free try scuba diving session.
Since the IAHD is a non-profit organization and does not have the financial sources to fund this project all by itself, we are looking for organizations that are willing to support us financially and/or materially. We try to get companies interested that are related to the scuba or rehabilitation market. For instance we will approach companies that sell dive gear and/or dive computers, producers of rehabilitation equipment and insurance companies.
The added value we have to offer to these companies to invest in this project can be found in the social aspect rather than profit. The pleasure that disabled divers experience and the gratefulness they express cannot be replaced by money.
Organizing a DCT?
If you want to organize a DCT, send an email to daniel@iahd.org to receive a manual and/or ask question/send remarks.