Special Olympics

SPECIAL OLYMPICS

When people see the seriousness and sense of purpose evident in each Special Olympics athletic event, a window of understanding opens. In hundreds of competitions a year around the world, people everywhere get the chance to have their eyes opened and their perspectives widened.

Special Olympics provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Those activities give them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship. While sports is the focus of the movement, other opportunities to change attitudes emerge along the way.

Healthy Athletes

For more than 10 years, Special Olympics has been serving athletes by offering free health screenings and health information at local, regional and World Games. In the process, Special Olympics has become the largest global public health organization dedicated to serving people with intellectual disabilities.

"What is that Sound?" An athlete gets his hearing tested at a Healthy Athletes event. Healthy Hearing is one of seven health screenings Special Olympics provides to its athletes Revealing Lack of Care. By listening to athletes at events and conducting research over many years, Special Olympics leaders became aware of the lack of quality health care for people with intellectual disabilities and found it unacceptable. We found that people with intellectual disabilities have a 40 percent greater risk for health issues, and that health care professionals are not trained in or experienced with caring for people with intellectual disabilities.

Extending Our Reach Called into action, we began to explore ways to help using Special Olympics’ unique global reach and access to people with intellectual disabilities. The result was the launch of the Healthy Athletes® initiative in 1997. Today, Healthy Athletes provides health screenings free of charge at Special Olympics competitions. Offered in a welcoming, fun environment, these screenings educate athletes on healthy lifestyle choices and identify problems that may need additional follow-up.

Healthy Athletes currently offers health screenings in seven areas: Fit Feet (podiatry), FUNfitness (physical therapy), Health Promotion (better health and well-being), Healthy Hearing (audiology), MedFest (sports physical exam), Opening Eyes (vision) and Special Smiles (dentistry).

Volunteers Providing Miracles

Through a global team of health-care volunteers, Healthy Athletes works to improve access and health care for Special Olympics athletes; make referrals to local health practitioners when appropriate; train health care professionals and students about the needs and care of people with intellectual disabilities; collect, analyze and dessiminate data on the health status and needs of people with intellectual disabilities; and advocate for improved health policies and programs for people with intellectual disabilities.

Healthy Athletes has a presence in more than 100 countries. Its influence is evident with more than 76,000 healthcare professionals trained, free health screenings provided to more than 700,000 athletes, and 50,000 free pairs of eyeglasses given to athletes. And it is just beginning – Healthy Athletes continues to grow each year with help from a global network of volunteers, in-kind donations and other financial support.

Lions Clubs International – Special Olympics

Lions Clubs International is the Global Partner of Special Olympics-Lions Clubs International Opening Eyes®

In 2001, the Lions Clubs International Foundation awarded Special Olympics the first grant in a multi-year, multi-million dollar commitment. Since then, the foundation has given more than $1 million each year. Together, these two organizations work to bring proper eye care to Special Olympics athletes around the globe through the Healthy Athletes Opening Eyes program. The commitment is more than just financial. Lions Clubs has supported the Opening Eyes program with thousands of volunteers from more than 80 countries. Lions play a crucial volunteer role, assisting with registration, color vision testing, visual acuity tests and distribution of glasses and protective sports goggles. In some cases, members also conduct some of the actual vision tests.