Building an Inclusive Paddle Community: RHKYC Charity Foundation x Love 21 Dragon Boat Training Programme

WORDS: BONITA LEUNG AND RYAN FUNG | IMAGES: PANDA MAN / TAKUMI IMAGES, NICOLA KWAN AND KAREN CHENG Rowing

How It Started

When I was first connected to the Love 21 Foundation in late June this year, I had assumed we would be planning a half-day out on the water for Love 21, a charity dedicated to empowering the Down syndrome (DS) and autistic community in Hong Kong. Since the RHKYC Charity Foundation works with local charities to provide on-water activities for those less fortunate than ourselves (amongst other initiatives undertaken by the Foundation), I thought it would be a good challenge to see if the Club and the Charity Foundation might be able to recruit enough volunteers to organize one dragon boat session for interested Love 21 members.

It turned out that Love 21 Foundation’s Founder and CEO Jeff Rotmeyer’s plan was slightly more ambitious – he was looking for a way to put together a dragon boat team that comprised of Love 21 members that could compete in a local race. I had my doubts – in past years it has taken two or three planning sessions and quite a few volunteers and club staff to organize a paddling and sailing day out at Middle Island for youth from underprivileged school districts – would we have the resources necessary to build a dragon boat programme for DS and autistic youth, especially out at Middle Island, where depending on the tide it can be extremely tricky to get on and off the sampan, and where balance in a dragon boat is extremely important if we want to avoid capsizing? How many volunteers would we need, and how many of us would have experience working with DS and autistic individuals? I told Jeff I would need to have a think about it and suggested doing a trial session out of Middle Island sometime in August with a potential to build a programme next year if the trial went well.

How It Went

As usual, I was unnecessarily worried. Within a matter of weeks, due to the full support of Nick Crabb and Gianni Aprea, we had a training programme and schedule, coaching, a 26 September local race, as well as all safety elements, sorted. As a result of the generosity of the Charity Foundation, costs for the Love 21 team’s race jerseys, coaching costs, and a “graduation lunch,” were covered. Thanks to the marine department of the Club and our coxswains, as well as our friends across Deep Water Bay at Victoria Recreation Club (VRC), safe access to Middle Island via the VRC pontoon and the larger sampan was granted.

Most importantly, because of the love and willingness of the Royal X team to share their

free time with the larger community, we had approximately thirty volunteers show up every Sunday morning, rain or shine, to “buddy” up alongside a Love 21 member to paddle or provide on- and off-water logistical support. The Club’s Royal X dragon boat coaches, steers and paddlers showed extraordinary patience in working with their buddies on boat balance, paddle technique and just generally how to have a fun time on the water. Even after the 26 September local race was cancelled, the Royal X rallied to organize an internal scrimmage for Love 21 and our juniors’ teams, so that they could get a sense of what a race could feel like. witnessed Love 21 paddlers who went from being too overwhelmed to paddle and needing to be hugged by their buddies the entire session, to smiling and getting so competitive on the water they refused to stop paddling unless their team was winning (and therefore would not want practice to end unless their team was winning!). Judged by the highfives and hugs exchanged by the Love 21 paddlers and their buddies by the time of the scrimmage, and the pride and smiles on their faces when they received the medals from their coach and the completion certificates from the Commodore, this trial run to build an inclusive dragon boat team has been an astounding success. In fact, the feedback from the families have been outstanding as well – they are already asking when the next programme will be held and whether they can begin enrolling now!

This initiative has had an immense impact on all of us who volunteered – we’ve all learned a tremendous amount and had a really fun time, and we look forward to hopefully being able to organize more inclusive on-water training programmes for the larger Hong Kong community with the support of more Club members!

The Royal X / Love 21 Crew

WORDS: RYAN FUNG

It all started with a six-week training programme on 15 August, where every Sunday, experienced paddlers from Royal X would pair-up with youth participants from Love 21 to train and get the team ready for

what was supposed to be an upcoming race at Lamma on 26 September, which turned into a scrimmage at Middle Island once the Lamma 500 races were cancelled.

During each training session, Royal X volunteers would help to get the boat ready with all the necessary equipment needed for the training ahead of time, to ensure all youth participants from Love 21 have a great training experience.

When working with Love 21 participants, the Royal X team exercised extra care by repeating the Coaches’ verbal instructions, supplemented with gestures and demonstrations to facilitate the trainings. One-on-one encouragements and friendliness were often displayed by the volunteers in between sets of exercises, making the participants feel welcomed under the new surroundings and people.

Despite the heat, heavy wind, and rain during some of the training sessions, the new paddlers persevered through adversity to make the most out of each training session and improved on their paddling techniques.

In the final weeks’ training, the coaches focused on doing a few scrimmages against one another to get a sense of the actual race. Under the guidance and support given, the participants were able to follow the instructions from their respective coaches without getting distracted by other boats. followed their assigned line-ups and competed against each other. Everyone was concentrated and in-sync, applying all the techniques they have learned from start to finish. At the end of the race, the team felt accomplished and excited to share the moment with their partners via photos and high-fives.

This has been a great experience for the Royal X team to partner with Love 21 to bring a group of Down syndrome and autistic paddlers onto a dragon boat race. Throughout the trainings, the group developed strong bonds amongst each other, where trust, joy, laughter, and team spirit were displayed across all practices. This is more than just a race, but a way for the Royal X team to connect and give back to the Hong Kong community.