00:00This August, Liverpool 1's Summer on the Park will showcase the very best of inclusive sport with Paralympians, community coaches and local heroes, hosting free events designed to inspire, educate and get the whole community moving.
00:14Unfortunately, there's a lot of when they struggle with something, they give up. And it's about resilience and I think sport teaches you that because when you're in a team setting, if you give up, what's the chance of the team winning? So you've got to keep going.
00:27Partnering with the Make the Life Kind Foundation Paralympic Champion Siobhan Fitzpatrick is bringing her passion for wheelchair basketball to the heart of the city.
00:38Yeah, I found wheelchair basketball by chance at the age of 12. I was told that I couldn't do PE at school and wanted to try different sports that I was able to do.
00:46And here we are nearly 15 years later, now representing my country and playing wheelchair basketball as a full-time job. So yeah, pretty cool.
00:52Since discovering the sport in 2010, Siobhan's become a powerful advocate for disability sport, travelling across the UK to prove that limitations exist only in the mines.
01:03It's a conversation I have all the time about hidden disabilities. You do not know what the next person's going through from day to day, what they're dealing with at home, what they're dealing with in their families, what difficulties they have.
01:12There's only two girls on our team that were born with their disability. Everyone else acquired their disability through car accidents, cancer, various health issues.
01:20And that's a really important message. You might be over-bodied now, but you never know what's going to happen later on in life.
01:24And not to be morbid or, you know, be horrible about it, but you may not know what might be in the future.
01:29Her masterclasses at Sugarhouse Steps offer the rare opportunity for the public to train alongside a true sporting legend, whether you're curious about Paralympic sport or ready to discover your new passion.
01:41For me, as much as it's contact and being able to hit people with the chairs, it's the team aspect, being able to do something that I enjoy with people that I love to be able to do sport with.
01:49As a junior, she first played for her hometown of Coventry, where she achieved great success at the school games and junior championships.
01:58Alongside her junior games, she also competed with the club's National League and Women's League teams.
02:04Thankfully, disability exposure, Paralympic exposure, Channel 4 have done a fantastic job at showcasing that we are athletes.
02:10We're not these superheroes that people think that we are. We are just normal people that play sport.
02:14And unfortunately, not that many years ago, but schools didn't know how to adapt and showcase sport.
02:19And charities like Mate Life Kind will now go into the community and into schools to showcase that we can do sport.
02:25Like, I don't use a day chair day-to-day, so I didn't know that wheelchair sports existed for someone like me.
02:30An awards-winning player, Siobhan has an extensive junior career, having co-captains the women's team back-to-back.
02:37Championship wins at the 2015 Under-25 World and 2016 Under-24 Europeans are feet not achieved by any other female GB junior team.
02:48Of course, sport is great for your physical and mental health, but it can teach you some real-life skills too.
02:55The kids are certainly enjoying having a go at wheelchair basketball.
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