HYAF/AINO Summer Program: Week 1
This week, the HYAF begun its summer collaboration with Association Ibrahim Nassir Omais (AINO), a school located in Zrariyeh, Lebanon. The school is specialized for individuals with special needs, and aims to provide students with indispensable preparation and skills that lead to valuable contributions in everyday society. Copied from the school’s website, AINO’s mission reads as follows: “The basis of the AINO mission is: love, embrace difference, supporting and challenge. We seek to help people with special needs by providing a complete rehabilitation program to enjoy a decent life and achieve their autonomy to integrate into society and establish their true role in it.” To learn more about this wonderful school and establishment, please visit https://ainoworld.org/.
This week, each session began with a dynamic stretching warmup with the goal to provide AINO students with important lessons and habits regarding injury prevention and pre/post-exercise recovery as a part of HYAF’s mission to promote sports medicine awareness. Students engaged in full-body, variegated stretching routines to ensure that their muscles were prepared for the movements and exercises to come. After their warmup, students began to partake in sport-specific activities. The first day consisted of soccer training, where students were initially able to get a feel for the ball, undergoing several basic movements to become comfortable with the ball on their person. Then, students went into cone drills aimed at improving lateral movement, focus, and agility, which consisted of students maneuvering between planted cones before taking shots on goal. After this, students then engaged in resistance band work specialized for strengthening leg muscles; students began with walking exercises before carrying out muscle-specific exercise to target muscles such as the quadriceps and hamstrings. The first session ended with upper body-strength exercises with dumbbells.
The second session of the week consisted of a very similar warmup to the first session. One important concept emphasized by AINO is repetition of movements, which helps strengthen habits and increases student comfort with different exercises. Then, students dove into a day of basketball. Similar to the first day, students first performed basic exercises related to holding and dribbling the ball to ensure optimal comfort. Then, cones were planted for students to dribble through before shooting on a basketball hoop. This drill focused not only on lateral movement, agility, and focus, but also on coordination. Subsequently, students further strengthened their upper-body muscles and focus with a drill consisting of passing the ball through a hula-hoop. The final drill of the day consisted of an extensive obstacle course that strengthened agility, vision, balance, and patience as students truly pushed their limits.
The final day of week 1 saw HYAF make their first delivery of sports equipment to AINO! This initial delivery consisted of cones, agility poles, hula hoops, soccer balls, basketballs, a basketball net, a child-oriented basketball hoop, and ping pong sets. Equipped with brand new equipment, the final session of week 1 consisted of both soccer and basketball, with a focus on repetition and increased challenge to hopefully assist students with replicating many of these important athletic and recovery-based movements on their own. After a warmup targeted at injury prevention and health/wellness, students began with soccer-based drills. These drills culminated into a similar drill to the first session where students maneuvered through cones before taking a shot, but this time the ball was placed at their feet, and students had to dribble before shooting (previously, they were moving through the cones without the ball). This presented a foreign challenge within a familiar drill for students, and they truly stepped out of their comfort zones courageously and willingly. Students excelled in the drill and displayed strong improvement from the first session. After this, students transitioned into basketball, where agility and shooting practice continued.
Throughout the first week of the summer collaboration between HYAF and AINO, students displayed bravery and a desire to push their limits. It was a pleasure to spend time with students who had such a positive and determined outlook on their pursuits. Week 1 can be considered a great success, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration next week!
HYAF 