TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Disabled athletes to ‘mingle’ with nondisabled peers at SOIna event
Change Size
Training together: A group of people consisting of intellectually disabled and nondisabled athletes play basketball together in Jakarta. (The Jakarta Post/Courtesy of Daniel Seminariyanto)
A
month-long event that has been tailored to allow intellectually disabled athletes to meet with their nondisabled fellow athletes is set to start in Jakarta on Feb.1. The event, dubbed the Unified Basketball LEOLYMPICS 2.0, is to be held at the Bina Bangsa School complex in West Jakarta.
“We are aiming at creating and promoting social inclusion where both disabled and 'normal' athletes could learn to team up and work as a team,” Daniel Seminariyanto, sports manager of Special Olympics Indonesia said recently.
During the event, besides competing in basketball, all participants would also learn more about unified sports, a sports platform that allows people of all conditions to do sports together. Through this, it is expected that social interactions between people with different conditions would allow them to learn and develop social skills and awareness.
Daniel said the event has been an effort to give disabled athletes more social platforms where they could develop self-confidence in building healthy relationships with their nondisabled peers. The event was made possible thanks to a cooperation agreement between the Special Olympics Indonesia and the Leo Clubs Lion Club district B1, part of the Lion Club international social organization that support the Special Olympics worldwide, including in Indonesia.
