While they were in Dar es Salaam , Tanzania , the UK College of Education team led more than 130 participants — mostly emerging disability sports leaders from Tanzania and Kenya — in workshops and lectures . The team also helped build the country ’ s Paralympic committee and finished the trip with a sports festival where 600 people attended , Mushett said .
Eleven of those East African leaders traveled to UK the following month to gain advanced training and learn more about using sports to rehabilitate disabilities and promote tolerance . The group attended the Shriners No Limits Sports Clinic and toured the facilities of Central Kentucky Riding for Hope .
“ They started thinking , ‘ How can we adapt what they do with horses to zebras ?’” Mushett said , referring to the therapeutic activities Riding for Hope offers for people with disabilities .
The visitors also took note of adapted activities and equipment used at Shriners Sports Clinic .
“ After gaining some specialized training from a U . S . university , they go back and have some power in that area ,” Mushett said .
Although fairly new to UK — having joined faculty a year ago — Mushett and Johnson are veterans in the sports diplomacy field .
In fact , Johnson said , someone they trained in 2002 became a minister of sport 11 years later .
From leading a sports program for women in the Middle East to organizing a soccer program in Colombia combating gang participation — the pair has long used sports as a commonality between countries and different types of people .
Mushett has served on the International Paralympic Committee ; the Board of Trustees of the Salt Lake Organizing
Committee for the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games ; and the International Olympic Committee Commission on Cultural and Olympic Education . She also oversaw the organization of global sport operations for four International Paralympic Games and 13 Paralympic World Championships . And she is a recipient of the Paralympic Order , Johnson the highest tribute awarded within the Paralympic Movement .
Johnson also has vast experience in the sports diplomacy world . He is the co-founder of the African Academy of Disability Sport and founder of the International Academy for Disability Rights . He was a member of the International Olympic Committee ( IOC ) Medical Commission and coordinated the Mushett IOC ’ s Sport Science Research Projects during the 1996 Atlanta Centennial Olympic Summer Games . Johnson also works with athletes of all ages and abilities in improving their sport performance and minimizing chances for injury .
As the two continue to establish the UK Global Center for Sport Diplomacy , they look forward to conducting more research on the effects of sports , strengthening partnerships with domestic and foreign partners and engaging the Lexington community .
“ If we can train one person and that one person impacts another … and if we can give our students these experiences … we can make a significant difference ,” Johnson said .
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