Special Olympics

Special Olympics is the largest organization involved in creating, organizing and managing sporting events for those with intellectual disabilities. They also provide training to more than 3.1 million athletes across 175 countries. The Special Olympics event is held once in two years, alternating between summer and winter. While this is the largest event of this type, there are also special local, national and regional sporting events that they are involved in through the year.

The organization consists of passionate people that come from various walks of life. They believe that people with specific intellectual disabilities have unique gifts that need to be identified, understood and appreciated. They believe that everyone needs to be treated with dignity and respect and that those who have intellectual disabilities should also be treated equally.

With presence in more than 200 countries worldwide, they can easily claim that the "sun never sets on the Special Olympics movement". The goal of the Special Olympics team is to bring these sporting events to as many communities as possible.

Founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver in 1968, Special Olympics has always had the support some of the outstanding personalities in sports, education, government, business and disability advocacy. These people contribute in the various ways that they can. While some are on the board, others give assistance in the form of money or time. The whole idea is to create a better and higher level of awareness among the people with regards to intellectual disability.

There are sports, education and health programs that are run across the world. The works carries on throughout the year for all 365 days. It never stops and it aims at achieving the vision that the founder had dreamt of - to improve the lives of people with intellectual disability everywhere and therefore transform the life of everyone that they touch. The idea is to build a world that is more accepting towards those with intellectual disability.

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