Special Olympics Oregon's Unified Sports program brings athletes with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team, teaching them the skills required to build respect and understanding of youth living with intellectual disabilities. Unified Sports encourages young people to promote inclusion and acceptance while shattering stereotypes about intellectual disability.
For too long, people with intellectual disabilities have been neglected and discriminated against, but we have the power to change this. We want to create more opportunities for inclusion and acceptance of people with intellectual disabilities in our society.
By training together and playing together, stereotypes about people who have intellectual disabilities disappear, understanding grows, and friendships are made. As a result, everyone learns to see the abilities, not the disabilities, in each other.
This project will help Special Olympics Oregon grow our Unified Sports program, offering more opportunities for youth with and without intellectual disabilities to compete and grow together by learning the tools needed to foster respect, acceptance, and understanding of those with intellectual disabilities in our community.
