Special Olympics athletes share a happy moment together by the side of the track.
'Pure Hearts' get a chance to play like normal people
A football player jumped for joy after blasting the ball into the goal to the sheer exasperation of his camp. You may wonder why? The player made the unintentional mistake of scoring an own goal and he was playing in the Special Olympics.
These intellectually disabled athletes, unlike other sportspersons, are not aware of winning or losing. There is no trickery, no cheating and their minds are not as complex as that of normal human beings. They just do what they are taught to do: kick the ball into the net and enjoy the moment. And with that innocent smile on their faces, who would get frustrated even though one point would be awarded to the rival team for such a mistake.
"Pure Hearts" is the term Saowaros Saengsawang, programme coordinator Special Olympics Asia Pacific, used to describe her Special Olympics athletes while explaining the difference between athletes with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) and Paralympics athletes.
"ID athletes, for example Down Syndrome types, are not much concerned about winning or losing. And, they never cheat. They just go for things that they have been trained to do. That is to kick the ball into the net and sometimes they have no idea it's their own side,'' Sawaros explained.
"Special Olympics is committed to people with disabilities while the focus of Paralympics is on people with physical disabilities," explained Janelle Nanavati, director of research and evaluation, Special Olympics International.
"Paralympics is more exclusively focused on sports while Special Olympics use sports as a platform to promote justice and human rights for people with ID all around the world," added the American, who was in Bangkok last week for the Special Olympics Healthy Communities Workshop.
Saowaros said there are many divisions in every discipline so ID athletes with close abilities can compete at the same level. Apart from gold, silver and bronze, participants will receive consolation prizes, from fourth to eighth places, which makes Special Olympics different from other sports competitions.
"We call it complimentary awards. Everyone attending a competition would get a reward and go home happily. Our objective is we want to create a healthy community for ID people and make them believe they can do and live like others in the society," Sawaros said.
Sports like aquatics, athletics, badminton, bocce, football, table tennis, basketball, tennis and aerobics dancing have been practised by Special Olympics Thailand athletes.
Locally, up to 50 Special Olympics tournaments are organised each year but at the same time ID people are fielded to compete in international events three to four times a year. That also included the Special Olympics World Summer Games, also staged on a quadrennial basis like the Summer Olympic Games.
Last year Thailand produced the best results in the Athens meet by coming home with a total of five gold, and for the first time the government started to appreciate their achievements and rewarded each gold medallist with Bt50,000 (Each Paralympics gold medallist is rewarded Bt6 million). However money is not what they are seeking.
"At least the government should see us as a project model for ID people. They need the venue to show their abilities and a chance to live with the society who should see them as normal people, not disabled," said Saowaros who just brought her team to compete in the Maekong Football 5-a-side tournament in Rangoon earlier this month.
Thailand is one of seven countries, including Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Peru, South Africa, Malawi, Romania selected to join the Special Olympics Healthy Communities Programme. Some 15,000 athletes have been registered with the Special Olympics Thailand, but it is estimated that there are up to 1.9 million people with intellectual disabilities nationwide, or 3 per cent of the total population (64 million).
"In remote areas, they lack almost everything - some cannot even read or write. So when they have health problems, they can't explain what's wrong with them, whether it's an injury or short eyesight. But under the Special Olympics Healthy Communities programme, we train them how to describe their conditions. The more they speak, the better they can describe what is wrong with them," Sawaros said.
Sad, but true, the number of ID people could be more than 2 million, including many slow learners in our country, but their families especially parents are too ashamed of their children to tell or the accept truth. They keep problems under the closet and send their children to normal schools, ignoring the fact that these kids are far behind their classmates in terms of comprehension.
The Special Olympics Healthy Communities programme is, therefore, introduced to help ID people, especially in remote and rural areas in terms of medical care.
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Article source: http://www.thethailandlinks.com/2012/11/25/seeking-some-joy-in-sport/
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