By Elena Brunton | Corporate Partnerships & Events Executive
The mission of Special Olympics Ireland is "to provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with an intellectual disability, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendships with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.”
Through our sports, health and leadership programmes our athletes learn to be physically, mentally and emotionally fit. They get to learn new skills, increase confidence and most importantly they get to experience the joy of sport and make life-long friendships!
Your very kind donations helped to support a range of programmes across sport, health and leadership. One such programme is our new Health Messenger Programme which trains athletes as health & wellness leaders, within their community. Speaking about her own involvement in the Health Messenger Programme, Swimmer Patricia Larkin from Connemara said “I wanted to become a Health Messenger because I want to show my family, work colleagues, and my Special Olympics friends how important health is”
The Health Messenger program is empowering athletes to: develop healthy lifestyles; influence other athletes to lead healthier lives; advocate within their communities for inclusion around health and wellness services, education and resources; and develop leaders to advocate for the health needs of people with intellectual disabilities.
Donations received have not only helped the above activity across our programmes but has also helped our clubs nationwide to return to normal activity following the Covid-19 Pandemic and have also aided in facilitating the new advancement cycle which replaced our Ireland Games as the selection process for next year’s World Games. This has had a positive impact on the lives of our athletes, their families, our clubs, coaches and volunteers.
The 2023 Special Olympics World Summer Games will take place in Berlin, Germany from June 17th to 24th. In June we plan to send a team of 73 athletes to the world games. Our support an athlete campaign aims to raise over €300,000 to support the costs associated with making our athletes dreams a reality. Your support will help Special Olympics athletes from across Ireland fulfil their dreams of representing Team Ireland on the global stage at the largest inclusive sporting event in the world.
As always, a special thank you for your support. Your commitment to Special Olympics Ireland is so very much appreciated. Without you we simply could not deliver our programmes.
Through the GlobalGiving Platform we are hoping to achieve a target of $20,000 for donations which will go towards our athlete programmes.
Kindest regards,
Special Olympics Ireland
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