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Rock Climbing with the Disabled: Never Settle for Less

Our Hong Kong Volunteer Team had a fun and inspiring rock climbing activity with wheelchair users who overcame physical limitations to experience climbing.

Everyone deserves experiencing what the world offers, even people with disability. It is true that physical disability makes it harder for wheelchair users to participate in a wide range of sports and physical activities; however, with some help, they can have a taste of them. 

On 21 May, a group of volunteers from our Hong Kong office joined Climax Improvement Association, a community sport climbing association, to assist a few wheelchair users in enjoying climbing. As the first in-person CSR activity in Hong Kong this year after the major COVID outbreak, it was a wonderful chance for our colleagues to send care and support to the disabled, promote disability inclusion and share the spirit of ‘never settle’, especially amid the pandemic.
A wheelchair system with climbing rope is specially designed to secure wheelchair users when they get engaged in the activity. Our colleagues pulled the rope to lift them so they could experience staying in the mid-air. Our colleagues also enjoyed climbing and even experienced it as a wheelchair user. 
The success of the activity goes to the coach and the founder of the association Mr Lai Chi Wai, who was once a professional athlete in rock climbing that held titles of world’s No.8 Rock Climber, 4-time winner of the Asian Rock Climbing Championship, and world's first Chinese winner of X-Game. He had a serious traffic accident that left him paraplegic in 2011. Even so, he did not stop climbing and even successfully challenged the Lion Rock in December 2016, one of the totems of ‘Hong Kong spirit’, making him the first Chinese athlete to be nominated for the Laureus World’s Best Sporting Moment of the month. He is now a wheelchair climbing coach, motivational speaker, author and team building coach, using his story to inspire others.

With the same can-do and daring attitudes, WSP believes that our people are capable of confronting the challenges that the society faces and building resilient and smart communities that facilitate the daily routines of community dwellers with various needs.