Community Service Final Essay

Coaching Aquatics in the Special Olympics

The organization that I decided to donate my time to is the Special Olympics. This is a worldwide non-profit organization that is dedicated to creating an environment where disabled peoples can interact with the community, learn to believe in them and have fun, all in a safe and supportive environment. They provide cutting edge research for new legislation, health care for impoverished disabled peoples, and a sense of empowerment for all who participate. The Special Olympics operates in over 150 different countries and trains over three million athletes. This organization operates using hundreds of thousands of volunteers; because of this style of operation we are able to provide free training and competitions to all of the athletes year round.

Part I

The current status of this organization and the issues that they are working on and support can be described as spreading. The Special Olympics have many projects, all of which have dramatically improved and grown in the past forty years since the formation of the Special Olympics. The awareness and acceptance of people with intellectual disabilities is ever growing, in part thanks to this program. There is also an increasing support system, both regarding education programs and social communities. These things are important because these programs represent steps forward in accepting all peoples. The Special Olympics also provides basic health care to many impoverished and neglected intellectual disabled. They have provided more than 700,000 screenings in 92 counties and give checkups and medication as needed. Programs for training healthcare professionals have been started to teach them how to work with patients suffering from intellectual disabilities, that is then brought back to their home town and put into practice. This is important because what they have done is improved the health, or saved the lives of many people around the world, and by educating the doctors they are providing this care exponentially. Historically, people with mental disabilities have been hidden away in houses for the insane, and shunned from society with disgust. Accepting people who were born with disabilities or were involved in tragic accidents is a necessary step to achieve a world perspective. In earlier times, black people were discriminated against, women were discriminated against, homosexuals are still discriminated against, and people with mental disabilities are currently over coming those discrimination and challenges with the help of organizations like the Special Olympics.

As with most new ideas and changes, support varies by location. There is so much positive support for this program, although there are always those who are set in their beliefs and refuse to consider a new approach. The fact that hundreds of thousands of people volunteer for this organization and they have been accepted into over 150 different countries, even wars have stopped for the Games, shows how the power of this movement. In regards to the war that they overcame; the city of Beirut in Lebanon halted the civil war so that the athletes could compete on the streets safely. Also in 1999 Palestinians and Israelis competed side by side with no hint of anything but friendly competition. The fact that the Special Olympics has been so graciously accepted into so many countries signals that they opinions of many people are finally changing in most locations, the foreign government has allowed outsider specialists to come in to their country to teach their teachers, to help the education and social development of those with disabilities in their countries.

Part II

The Special Olympics influences the government greatly, it is the spearhead of research into intellectual disabilities and reports their findings to the heads of multiple programs. The provided information gave the basis for the U.S. Surgeon General’s report titled “Closing the Gap – a National Blueprint to Improve the Health Care for Persons with Mental Retardation”. This in turn led to the expansion of the Special Olympics Healthy Athletes program. The researchers that work for the Special Olympics report to high officials in various government sectors, including: Health care, education, nonprofit sectors and business sectors. In 2007 the Special Olympics gave a presentation on the Global Policy Summit on the Well-Being of People with Intellectual Disabilities to almost 70 representatives of major international organizations. The federal government has created many acts and bills regarding people with any number of disabilities, from laws regarding wheel chair accessibility to the mandatory minimum curriculum taught in special education class rooms. The state government helps by enforcing these laws in their specific jurisdiction while the local government gives support for programs and events through advertizing and land provision.

The two ways in which this project can relate to what we have been learning this year are; the process that the bill went through to be passed, and the structure of the Special Olympics’ organization itself, these relate back to government and economics, respectively. There are whole Administrations dedicated to peoples with various disabilities, for example; the Administration on Developmental Disabilities. These administrations had to be created by the president in a piece of legislature. Workers had to be hired and each piece of the bill had to be proposed by the House, and then passed in the Senate before going to the President for a final signature. The nonprofit organization ties in to our economics unit. This organization draws upon cooperate sponsors and volunteers time to continue operation. The corporations donate to make themselves more appealing to potential stock holders, just as many are now promoting aiding our environment and going green. The donations go into the program allowing free training and competitions to commence year round. The significance of the Games being free of charge for the athletes is it allows more people to compete, not to be rejected because of lack of funds. The sponsors also fund sending a few randomly chosen delegates to the world competitions every year, for example this year’s World Finals will be in Athens, Greece. Free health services also made possible because of these donations. In these ways the money that the corporations donate is, in a way, trickling down to the middle and lower class in unorthodox ways. The organization has very few paid staff, there are regional managers, two in northern California, who lead a heard of eager volunteers.

Part III

Different people and groups of people have different ideas as to how issues revolving around people with intellectual disabilities are to be handled. The first one that comes to mind is one that is highly controversial and is currently not regarded in a positive manner at all. It is the biological approach, which involves either IVF or genetic testing after the pregnancy has commenced. In the current time James Watson is the leader of this movement, he has made many great contributions to the scientific community, including revealing the double helix structure of DNA. This concept is using modern technology to extract gametes from both parents and fertilize the oocyte within a Petri dish, thus the Invetro name. When the mass is eight cells big one can me extracted and tested for a multitude of genetic problems, including Trisomy 21, Autism, predisposition to manic depression and a multitude of other abnormalities. If the post conception technique is used, he urges women to abort genetically abnormal children. This approach, instead of supporting and accepting humans with intellectual and other types of Disability, seeks to obliterate them. He wishes to drive them to extinction and erase them from our gene pool. This technique has been stated to merely be a technological version of Hitler’s extermination of non-Aryan Europeans and the Eugenics movement in the US’ earlier history. While the Eugenics movement does not hold a candle to the Holocaust, in both cases those who were deemed genetically or socially unfit were imprisoned, forcibly sterilized and killed. There is also another argument against Watsons theory’s, it is regarding where we stop. Do we stop at terminal genetic diseases, ones that will minimally hinder the child, or eye color? I personally do not find this a solution that we should pursue at this time. People with disabilities commonly can a huge positive influence on their society and can enjoy life, as much as any of us.

What I feel needs to be done, is for more people to gain knowledge about this movement. It is a huge force already, but it can always spread further. They have started to create schools, and give medical care to those all over the globe in impoverished and conveniently ignored rejoins of earth and this need to continue in increasing number. There is a great deal of legislation that has been created in regards to this subject and this is a great positive step. There should be more education, probably within the public school system about disabilities, and more opportunities for interaction and learning about those with disabilities. As of now, some have gone through our school, never having met many of the kinds who have been in our Special Education programs, even though Donathan is probably the nicest student at our school. There are people who have never heard of Lunch Buddies, and there are people who would cringe away from a person who was autistic. This relates to the triangle of ignorance, fear and hatred. If one is ignorant of disabilities, then when faced with a person who has one of those disablilites, the unknown threatens their previous knowledge of how every person looks and behaves, causing fear. If we could eliminate that ignorance, by educating and letting people get involved in this community, much energy put towards discrimination and fear could then turn to positive energy used to improve the lives of yourself and the people you surround yourself with. It comes down to providing more knowledge, so that those who were previously unaware can learn, change their ways, or get involved!

My community service hours have not yet started other than an orientation to the program. But already, by reading their site and blogging on this subject for the past few weeks have learned much in regards to my upcoming project. Because what I have chosen is a spring sport, the aquatics program started last week, and I am now just waiting on my security clearance to be sent back so I can be placed and start coaching. Before we could even sign up for the volunteering we were all required to complete an online test to protect the athletes from abuse, mainly of the sexual nature. We were also required to turn in a signed copy of the Coaches Code of Conduct, which was a very throughout lest of how to act and what not to do in any situation. I was told that I will be given small jobs at first then moved on to large responsibilities. I will get to know many athletes, who, I was surprised to find out, range from 5 to over 50, and many other volunteers. I might be asked to hang out with a few athletes or to lead part of a workout, either way; I am excited to start this process and to get on deck. Because my hours have not officially started yet, I will be extra careful in documenting them and in getting a signed letter from the head coach to prove that I did, in fact, complete my promises. From my research I have learned about the wonderful programs that the Special Olympics offers and the amount of good they do all over the world. I was surprised to find the sheer numbers of people involved in this project and just how large their sphere of influence is. I have learned the proper ways to refer to people; they have intellectual, or developmental disabilities, not merely mental disabilities, or problems. And I have learned how much many people donating a few hours each can do for a group of people. I look forward to learning more from the athletes and fellow volunteers in the weeks to come; I have been told it is a wonderful growing experience for both athlete and coach.