Sport and Social Inclusion (with Special Olympics Singapore)

Sport is key for social inclusion of all people. It has been identified as an important tool for breaking down barriers such as language, religion, gender, ability and borders to create a more inclusive society. Special Olympics (SO) Singapore is part of a global inclusion movement using sports, health, education & leadership programme to end discrimination against and empower people with intellectual disabilities. SO Singapore 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.  Jean-Phillipe: Is a 36-year-old French citizen based in Singapore for 4 years, engaged with my future wife. He is the Director of business Development in an engineering and inspection Asian regional firm for Energy and Sustainable sectors. He is passionate about triathlon and running, and is a half-ironman finisher x4 times and I am targeting the Ironman 70.3 world championship in 2022. 6 months ago, a good Singaporean friends and member of his triathlon club introduced him to SO outreach program and Norman, as I wanted to volunteer and giving back to the community.   Norman: Is 33 this year and currently working as a project executive in an urban farm. He is quite the runner himself, starting in the early years with basketball before moving into long distance running, including ultramarathons. He heard about SO Singapore in 2014 from a lecturer who was then the President of Special Olympics Singapore - she made a statement saying that she bet the majority of us could't outrun the fastest athlete in the outreach program. That spurred him to start volunteering with SO Singapore a try since he wanted to impart his running knowledge and experience somewhere. He has been volunteering since. The role of the head coach was then handed over to him at the beginning of 2018 and it is a great joy serving everyone in the outreach program. --- Please subscribe to the Sports for Social Impact Podcast wherever you get your podcast! Leave us a review and a 5 star rating to help bring others in the sport industry into the conversation! Send us an email at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SportsSocImpact Visit our website at https://www.sportsforsocialimpact.com/