A sociological approach to the Pedal Além da Visão project: Adapted cycling as a practice of social inclusion

The “Pedal Além da Visão” extension project aims to; the integration of the State University of Mato Grosso and the community, as well as the construction of autonomy, social protagonism and the apprehension/development of the psychomotor movement of Persons with Disabilities (PWD) through adapted cycling. Another relevant aspect of this project consists of enhancing cooperation, mediation and mutual training between all project participants. That is, people with visual impairments (the guides) and people without visual impairments, the guide athletes. This project addresses social education intertwined with special education/social inclusion, which are worked through the pedagogical practice of teaching cycling adapted to people with visual impairments, in the municipality of Cuiabá-MT. The partnership took place between teachers from the State University of Mato Grosso-UNEMAT and elementary school teachers, belonging to the municipal education network of Cuiabá-MT. This project will take place in unconventional training spaces (municipal parks in Cuiabá, which have adequate cycle paths). The subjects participating in this project are people with visual impairments, basic education teachers, UNEMAT teachers and the external community in general. This mediating and cooperative action between the university and basic education professionals in Cuiabá, provides a new space and new experiences, resulting from the sports practice of adapted cycling, with the purpose of working on the culture of inclusion, the protagonism of people with visual impairment , the recognition and overcoming of multiple barriers. The results achieved so far are: adherence of people with visual impairments; considerable increase in guiding athletes and interaction with the community, noticed above all in Cuiabá's traffic. Since at first it caused some strangeness. With the development of street activities, to a certain extent, drivers will be able to rely on collaboration when they come across adapted cycling activities in the city.