Adapted underwater exploration tour
Every year, the Handiversité department organizes a one-day outing designed to introduce students to an extracurricular activity. What’s on the agenda for this year’s event? Scuba diving with the Odyssée diving school in Sète. A dip into wellness… A video produced by the DSIN at the University of Montpellier.
Seven people took part in the adapted discovery outing organized each year by the Handiversité program. On the morning of June 6, Emma, Anthony, Alice, Jérôme, Mai-Linh, Nicolas, and Vinhson boarded a bus headed for Sète. Thanks to the Odyssée diving school and its vice president, Emmanuel Serval, they were able to experience their first dive. “This outing, organizedin a setting and environment they aren’t used to, is an opportunity to show them that diving is accessible to everyone,” says Frédéric Achard, head of the Handiversité department.
Wetsuits, fins, regulators, and tanks—the seven students donned the full diving gear.“When you submerge yourself underwater, it brings a sense of well-being,” says Emmanuel Serval . “There’s a completely different sense of body awareness between being in the air and underwater.”And facing the clear waters of the Mediterranean, everyone, regardless of their disability, took the plunge! “It’s a chance to do something I’ve never done before, so I told myself: well, go for it! Let’s go! We’ve got to do this,” says Alice, who, like her six classmates, earned a certificate in underwater biology after completing the underwater environmental awareness training they received.