Enthusiasm included

Willi Kuhlbörsch actively encourages
inclusion in society.

A chat with his landlord triggered the change. After his total laryngectomy 25 years ago, Willi Kuhlbörsch thought his days of intensive football playing and swimming were a thing of the past for ever. His landlord told him about an amateur football team, with which he was able to play with no thought of any problems. There was no fear of contact or reservations. Since then Willi has been an activist encouraging inclusion in sport and elsewhere.

 

 

When he was diagnosed in 1999, Mr Kuhlbörsch was 38 years old and felt completely overwhelmed by his laryngeal disease: "At the prime of life, successful professionally and in private life, I was thrown down to the bottom from one day to the next. So many questions go through your head, mixed with anger, sadness and above all helplessness." In addition, even two years after the surgery his voice had not returned. Ultimately, he had to give up his profession as a therapist. Exercise, which had been so important to him, now seemed impossible. However, in rehabilitation he learnt to swim with the hydrotherapy device – a significant improvement that encouraged him. But Willi was still missing the excitement of sport. He discussed this with his landlord, who told him about the amateur football team. "When this all worked out, it was simply wonderful to be able to run, play and foul just like old times," says Willi. It was very important to him then that he did not want any special treatment because of his physical restrictions.

Acting as a coach is very important for him

Willi has been a coach for sporting groups in his free time for 15 years. He continued this activity after the laryngectomy. He started coaching players with handicaps and established an indoor hockey group and a football group. When he had to give up working with his former club, he first thought about giving it up altogether. However, after a while some of the players from the hockey group came asking him to coach them. Without the support of a club, a lot of basic organisation and practical work falls on the members of the group. But they managed it with their combined efforts and some outside help from supporters and sponsors, and in 2024 they established their own club, the "Inclusion Sport Group Emmental". They also participated as a group in Special Olympics tournaments.

 

 

Inclusion at the forefront

Mr Kuhlbörsch is also active in inclusion away from the sports arena. He travels regularly as a support person to make it possible for people with cerebral restrictions to go on holiday. He believes that many more people should offer such or similar support. In all, there are many options for contributing to supporting the integration of people with handicaps. "This is exactly what I would want from everyone in society, because everyone can do something." For example, a large number of helpers and assistants were wanted at the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin last year to support the players with handicaps. Helpers and leaders for inclusive exercise sessions are also wanted. There is even special education available to gain a training certificate in exercise for handicapped people. Mr Kuhlbörsch was particularly enthusiastic with this topic during our interview and had so many ideas, such as the essential need to get rid of bureaucratic hurdles that make it more difficult to become a volunteer in this field. Schools or clubs could offer regular mixed inclusive exercise sessions. Inclusive exercise seminars or ski camps could be offered at both federal and state level. Or how about financial support from health insurers, possibly based on a bonus system? He told us about how confirmation candidates, school students without handicaps, recently came to four inclusive training sessions. That was really great! We saw how barriers were broken down bit by bit.

 

Respect in sports

We switched the interview to the topic of respect and wanted to know how this is shown in sport. Willi Kuhlbörsch finds it important that no one is envious of anyone else. Everyone can appreciate and honour the efforts of others without criticism and can offer help at any time where needed. He considers fair play in sport to be very important in his own group. "Over time habits of not letting anyone feel like an outsider have automatically developed. They all feel that they belong and no one is an outsider, and that is what I consider respect in sport." Unfortunately, Willi does not see much of that in professional sport. At the conclusion of the interview, we wanted to know what advice Mr Kuhlbörsch would like to give other people in similar situations. In his opinion people with a restriction or a handicap are capable of much more that most people would think – and certainly more than they themselves think. He added thoughtfully: "Every day we see how joy in life arises from dreams. And that is what I want to say to other patients: never lose hope and fight for your own dreams!"