Drive to boost profile of Special Olympics

Date: 30/04/1998

By Myles Neligan

SPORTS and disabilities campaigners within the European Parliament hope to raise the profile of the Special Olympics, the biennial international athletics competition for people with mental and physical disabilities, at a public meeting next week.

The presentation, which will take place at the Parliament's Espace Léopold headquarters in Brussels next Wednesday (6 May), will focus on the social impact of disabilities and highlight the vital contribution athletics associations can make in encouraging disabled people to take up sports.

Michael Smith, Special Olympics director for Europe and Asia, will be one of the speakers, along with MEPs and European Commission officials. "This event is important because it will stimulate discussion of the Special Olympics cause amongst MEPs who are in a good position to raise our public profile," said a spokeswoman. "It will also act as a curtain-raiser for the 2000 Special Olympics which will be held in the Netherlands."

Angela Billingham, the British Socialist MEP and former Wimbledon tennis ace who has helped organise the presentation, also hopes that the event will lead to an increase in EU funding for the Special Olympics. "Six years ago, a parliamentary report concluded that the main focus of EU sports funding should be on the disabled. The 6 May meeting is intended to act as a follow-up to that report," she said, expressing the hope that as many people as possible would turn up to support "this very worthwhile cause".

The Commission currently provides around 1 million ecu a year in funding for disabled sports. The precise amount is decided every year, depending on the overall budgetary situation.

On 20 May, the European branch of the Special Olympics will hold a fund-raising drive in Brussels to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the games, and to mark the start of the 1998 Belgian Special Olympics. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Special Olympics founder and sister of the late US President John F Kennedy, will attend the event.