“My mindset has changed.” Special Olympics campaigns for inclusion everywhere
“Because of Play Unified: Learn Unified, I shared activities with people with intellectual disabilities for the first time,” says Adja, a student with Special Olympics Senegal. “I made great friends, and my mindset has changed.”
Changing mindsets is core to the mission of Special Olympics. As Special Olympics International Chairman Timothy Shriver wrote recently in an opinion piece for SNF Dialogues, “everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and when that happens, everyone benefits.” Treating others with dignity rather than contempt, he argues, is not only the right thing to do at an individual level but is how we combat the ills that face us at the societal level.
It's in this swinging-for-the-fences spirit that Special Olympics’ Global Campaign for Inclusion has sought to effect change. Launched in 2021 with support major from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), the Campaign has expanded Unified programming in schools and amplified the voices of those calling for action on the urgent issue of inclusion, betting that a more inclusive world can grow on a foundation, as Adja experienced, of simply getting to know one another better.
The Global Campaign for inclusion built on progress made during the yearslong partnership SNF and Special Olympics have enjoyed, including by extending a collaboration on the Play Unified: Learn Unified school-based inclusion framework that began in 2018. The Play Unified: Learn Unified model, which creates settings—Unified schools, sports clubs, and community centers—where sports help forge interpersonal connections that transcend the playing field, was showing real results in changing mindsets. By the time the Global Campaign for Inclusion was launched three years later, 94% of partner schools reported that participating in Play Unified: Learn Unified programming had helped reduce bullying, teasing and offensive language in their communities.
The effect extends across the whole school community. Minghua, the principal of a Unified school in China reported that after participating in Play Unified: Learn Unified, “students with and without intellectual disabilities got closer together, and they became more active and more confident.” Enhksaruul, a teacher in Mongolia said, “Because of Play Unified: Learn Unified, we all represent an inclusive society.” Loida, a volunteer at a Unified School in Tanzania said that through the program, “I have been able to help and understand people with intellectual disabilities.” And a student participant in Greece said, “Thanks to Play Unified: Learn Unified, me and my classmates were informed about Special Olympics and our behavior at school towards people with disabilities has changed. Cases of bullying have diminished drastically.”
Between June 2021 and April 2024, the extension of the Play Unified: Learn Unified platform introduced nearly 14,000 new teachers and coaches at nearly 2,000 new schools to the methodology, reaching almost half a million additional students of all abilities with sports, educational, and leadership activities.
In western Tanzania’s Nyarugusu Refugee Camp, which is home to refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi, for instance, seven new Unified schools serving over 250 athletes were added.
New efforts also started taking place within schools. Enhksaruul, the teacher from Mongolia, runs her school’s public speaking club, and in 2021 she expanded the club to include students with intellectual disabilities in addition to those without. Tsetseehen, a student who helps out with the Unified club, sees the importance of a change in mindset. “People with intellectual disabilities are being discriminated against because of something that they’re not responsible for. So, if it’s not possible for them to change their condition, then why can’t we change our point of view?”
Even where students with and without intellectual disabilities are not attending the same school and stigma has created barriers between them in the past, Special Olympics is making inroads. Shaneel, who attends a school in Spanish Town, Jamaica, that serves students with intellectual disabilities and Derrico, who attends the mainstream school just next door, connected through Unified soccer matches. “My daughter is a star,” says Shaneel’s mother, and if it wasn’t for Special Olympics, I don’t know how she would manage in this world.”
The 2021 grant also supported the creation of a network of 35 Global Inclusion Ambassadors, individuals at institutions from UNICEF to the London School of Economics who are using their platforms to advocate for inclusion. Special Olympics continues to spread its message in venues like last December’s UN Human Rights Council’s Global Refugee Forum, and in January, Dr. Shriver inaugurated an annual letter on the Global State of Inclusion in Education.
Special Olympics continues to build on the successes of its Global Campaign for Inclusion. Last June at the Special Olympics World Games in Berlin, they announced the establishment of the Global Leadership Coalition for Inclusion, a collaboration between governments, businesses, philanthropic entities, and nonprofits for which SNF provides support. The Coalition began with 14 countries spanning four continents; it has since grown to include 17 national governments on five continents.
Members have pledged to expand Special Olympics Unified sports and education programs with the aim of reaching two million young people in more than 150,000 schools over five years. The goal is to pair a transformation in mindset with concrete action.
Adja, the Special Olympics student from Senegal, is doing the same. “I am proud to say I’m now a coach for Special Olympics Senegal!”