With the 2022 edition of the Special Olympics Invitational Games opening in Malta for the first time ever, CEO of GSD Marketing Ltd, Maria Micallef, highlights the significance of this global event within the Maltese context, the dedicated Maltese community that has made it possible and the support of the Coca-Cola company...
Dating back to the early 1960s, the Special Olympics started as the brainchild of one brave woman – Eunice Kennedy Shriver.
Eunice had enough of the discrimination against people with intellectual disabilities and set out to challenge the injustice by holding an annual summer camp in her own backyard. This gradually evolved into the international Special Olympics event we know today.
While the logistics and reach of the event have changed over time, its mission remains the same: to focus on what these unfairly treated young people could do well, rather than on what they couldn’t.
Today, the Special Olympics make up the world’s largest inclusive sports organisation – a global movement that welcomes everyone, regardless of their abilities and disabilities.