HISTORY OF THE PARAFED NETWORK

The History of ParaFed’s and Paralympics New Zealand
New Zealand’s first participation in sports events for people with disabilities was in 1962 when an Auckland paraplegic attended the British Commonwealth Paraplegic Games held in Western Australia.

In 1965, Auckland established the first disability regional association. In 1966, a team of nine Aucklanders and one Dunedin competitor were selected to attend the Commonwealth Games in Jamaica.

Christchurch held the first inter-regional games in 1966. Following on from this other regional ParaFed’s were established. In 1968, the first National Disabled Championships were held with 29 competitors.

In 1968, the New Zealand Paraplegic & Physically Disabled Federation was formed as the National Sports Organisation for people with disabilities, to enable an official team to represent at the Paralympic Games in Israel. 15 Para athletes competed and returned with one gold, two silver and one bronze medals.

In 2007, The New Zealand Paraplegic & Physically Disabled Federation changed its name to become Paralympics New Zealand.

Over the years the regional ParaFed’s have had varied paths with some original ParaFed’s no longer operating or reforming under another name but in 2022 all regional areas on New Zealand have some form of entity that supports Para sports, recreation, events, and activities.


​​​​​​​ParaFed Network
The ParaFed Network was formed in late 2015.

It became evident that the regional ParaFed’s wanted to work together more. In late 2015, the ParaFed’s meet in Auckland and discussed what the future of the movement could look like. It was decided that they wanted to have a recognized voice and the best way was to form a collective known as the ParaFed Network.

Each member organisation still operate independently. The ParaFed Network is there it share best practice, information, and work on strengthening the sector. The ParaFed Network now has regular meetings between the regional sports staff and has a Leadership Group selected from the regional organisations which is responsible for enabling conversations and planning for the future of the network.

Some ParaFed’s have rebranded to enable their community to understand and recognise what they do within their regions, but they have all originated from the humble beginnings of the movement in 1965.