Chantal Deketele is a community champion. As a teacher, coach, volunteer, and director, she dedicated years of her personal and professional life to breaking barriers for people with special needs. While her list of accomplishments is long, she has truly made the community a more accessible and inclusive space through her founding of Boxing Without Barriers (BWB), a non-contact boxing program specifically for children, youth, adults (ages 7+) with physical, cognitive, or developmental disabilities. Building off her experience as a Special Olympics swim coach, a deaf/blind educator, and a public-school teacher, Chantal founded BWB in 2018. She designed a customized program for athletes and a specialized training course for volunteers and coaches to give participants quality training that meets their unique needs. She delivered hundreds of classes to hundreds of kids and trained dozens of volunteers to give individuals with special needs access to a sport that they have been largely excluded from. And she didn’t stop there. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Chantal took her programming online and reached even more participants. She’s created specialized classes for deaf and hard of hearing individuals as well as an in-school program for kids. She applied her customized approaches to other sports and recently started Cricket Without Barriers. This year alone, she obtained Ontario’s first official boxing sanction for para-boxing, successfully fundraised a customized club ramp, and co-chaired the first Ottawa Inclusive & Para Sports Expo. Chantal is a leader and mentor that dedicated her life to marrying her love of sports and inclusivity. She sees the potential in every person and helps them feel strong and confident through sport. She has changed the lives of many through Boxing Without Barriers and embodies what it means to be a community champion. It’s no wonder that the BWB slogan is “everyone has the potential to be a champion”.
Shanjay Kailayanathan, Axcessiom Technologies
Shanjay is a Software Engineering student and young Entrepreneur whose goal is to make this world a better place through technology. Living in such a technologically advanced day and age, Shanjay made it a mission to fix world issues that persist through innovative...
