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Clement Coulston and Rachel Ward, Global Youth Facilitators for the 2013 Special Olympics Global Youth Activation Summit participated in the inaugural Global Development Summit, which gathered 300 world leaders from areas of government, business, education, economic and social development, media … Continue reading
Day four at the 2013 Special Olympics Global Youth Activation Summit – youth leaders came together to celebrate the power and importance of young people in the Special Olympics Movement.
Read below to hear about some of the amazing activities from the day.
Today, GYAS leaders discussed and identified the values that they see in Special Olympics Project UNIFY. For each value, youth either described its meaning or shared personal experiences corresponding to that value. Through this, we were able to articulate how our unique experiences combine in creating this “for the youth, by the youth” movement. Read a brief sample of the work below to understand the values of Project UNIFY according to our GYAS teams:
Following an engaging “Youth Do Change the World” session, GYAS leaders headed to Alpensia Resort to watch competitions, explore the Festival Village and participate in the Global Youth Rally, a fun and interactive event that shared the messages of acceptance, unity and friendship with about 900 domestic (Korea) and international students.
The theme of the Global Youth Rally was ‘Tied Together’ and encouraged rally participants to bond together to create awareness for Special Olympics and initiate meaningful social change in their communities, countries and beyond. In an inspiring moment amongst lots of dancing, singing and fun, Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver, issued a call to participants, “Who is the next revolutionary… you are! Your time is now. The last great human rights revolution is being lead by you.”
Since a picture’s worth a thousand words… check out a photo album that shares some of the great memories from our adventures today.
The following guest blog comes from Juan L., a partner at Neuqua Valley High School and a co-chair of the Special Olympics Illinois Youth Activation Committee.
Everyone was cheering, and people surrounded us yelling congratulations, giving us high fives, and big hugs. We felt like we were on top of the world for a moment, it was truly one of the best feelings in the world.
Our names are Juan and Liam and we are two of the co-chairs for Project UNIFY. The cheering and praise was a result of our fantastic first place prize in our schools dance competition, Neuqua Knows It Can Dance. It was our third year doing the dance competition and it has always been a blast with a mix of friends with intellectual disabilities and their peers.
This year we wanted it to be perfect, so we started early practicing and practicing till we coud do the dance in our sleep. Although, we had never won before and didn’t expect to this year (since we exceeded the maximum amount of people in a group allowed) it came to our surprise when they announced the winners of this years dance competition. The moment they said “PEER PARTNER ROCKSTARS” our entire group erupted in cheers and all of our peers were equally ecstatic.
Looking back on that night I could truly appreciate the hard work we all put into it, to show that people with intellectual disabilities are able to accomplish the same things that other people can do. When we were talking about that night, Liam said his favorite part was when everybody cheered for him. In our society many people don’t realize the potential and awesome talent that Special Olympics athletes have and it feels great to finally be recognized.
That entire week we were treated like royalty in the halls and everyone kept telling us how great we looked and how well organized it was. Liam and I felt so proud not only on our victory, but on our school’s support. It is good to know that our school not only has a program for students with intellectual disabilities, but encourages them as well. The last day of that week we were able to perform at the school pep rally in front of four thousand students. I think that was when we really shined, and not just because of our neon costumes.
Our dance not only showed that we had mad dance skills, but that students with intellectual disabilities are capable of amazing things and that together we can be even greater.
This past weekend, our National Youth Activation Committee members were here in Washington, DC for the bi-annual National YAC meeting! 19 youth leaders, along with 14 mentors from their local state Special Olympics Programs, came together from around the country to brainstorm ideas and plan for a great year of projects and activities.
As always – I was blown away by these amazing and inspiring youth leaders who help catapult our movement of acceptance and respect into schools and towns across the country. While there were so many examples of their incredible leadership throughout the weekend, I had to share the results of one particular activity during a professional development session.
In the activity, each National YAC member was asked to develop a quote that expressed their ideas, thoughts, values, feelings or attitudes about Special Olympics, friends, family and/or courage.
The results are amazing. These young people are truly the leaders of today… but they will most certainly be the leaders of the future as well.
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“Special Olympics isn’t just for people with disabilities… Special Olympics has helped me find my voice, build my confidence and identify my passion.”
– Kaitlyn Smith, Colorado
“Stop watching every step you take. Close your eyes and let the world surprise you.”
– Shelby Lynne Dial, Wyoming
“Everyone can help create change; you just have to believe in yourself.”
– Heather Glaser, Wyoming
“Let the way you walk and talk exemplify who you truly are.”
– Daniel Fink, Washington
“Leaders don’t follow the path of the past; leaders make their own path. If they are a true leader, no matter the obstacles, they will prevail.”
– Dallas Lopez, Texas
“Everyday a new challenge awaits, it’s up to us to find the right path.”
– Brady Platt, South Carolina
“Our memories define us: every laugh, every kiss, every tear is a part of who we are. So let’s strive to become better people starting with our memories.”
– Rachel Alm, Hawaii
“I am nothing without my Special Olympics family – they encourage and inspire me to be better.”
– Kelsey Foster, South Carolina
“Life with your three musketeers always makes you happy.”
– James Kweon, Idaho
“Change should be respected, not hated.”
– Bernice Higa-French, Hawaii
“Each of us is created with a seed deep within. When you embrace the sunshine of all circumstances and be open to the shower of others’ influence, only then will a beautiful flower grow that will be a gift to the world.”
– Danielle Liebl, Minnesota
“There are four words on the Special Olympics medal: skill, courage, sharing and joy. Skill is the least important because the other three are what win you the gold.”
– Jordan Schubert, Philadelphia
“I want to live in a world where madness is meditated, nonsense is valued, challenges are embraced and fostering creativity and imagination is our greatest objective.”
– Evan Heller, Massachusetts
“Life as a star is like reaching a certain goal. Our favorite YAC family is like a huge star – above and beyond.”
– Tanealya Hueth, Montana
The following post is from Kara Fleming, an intern with Project UNIFY who spent her summer focused on the Spread the Word to End the Word campaign.
There I was, fresh out of high school, vying for an internship in Washington, D.C., as an incoming college freshmen from middle-of-nowhere, Idaho. The odds were stacked but someone must have seen something in me they liked, because before I knew it, I was an intern for Special Olympics International.
It ended up being more than I ever could’ve dreamed. The city itself was amazing, and having the job in the first place was incredible, but it wasn’t until the last day that I finally put my finger on what made this summer so amazing.
It was the people.
All these people truly embody the mission of Special Olympics and Project UNIFY. I learned more from watching this amazing group for two months than I ever could’ve if I’d had the same internship at another office. I learned that first and foremost, it is people like this who make Special Olympics what it is, and it is by focusing on them that the organization is able to have such an amazing impact. Every decision is made with people in mind. How can we make it a better experience for our athletes? How are we promoting respect, dignity, and inclusion? How are we creating an inclusive environment everywhere from the workplace to the playing field to the streets of cities across the world?
These people are just a sample of the people involved in the movement. There are many more like them, but these in particular are the ones who poured their time and energy into making me feel like a part of the Special Olympics staff, even if it was just for a summer. They are the reason why I will never forget this internship and why I can’t wait to continue being involved in Special Olympics.
This blog is written by Tanealya Hueth, a member of the National Youth Activation Committee, and an acvtive volunteer in her community in Montana. Tanealya shares some insigtht on how to avoid becoming detached from quality work during the summer. Just because school is out, doesn’t mean we have to be!
School is out and summer vacation has begun. This does not mean as a youth leader the impact that you have has to stop. Last summer, I had the opportunity to go to Greece and attend the National Youth Activation Summit. At this conference, we made an impact on others by discussions and workshops that helped each of us grow and become better leaders.
So the question is, “What can you do during summer vacation, as a youth leader, to make an impact?” Youth volunteering, being a mentor, helping in the community, or even getting others involved can make an impact. It is easy to see the impact of your actions thought these activities and this is even a fun way to spend your summer.
Where can you volunteer? First look for places to Volunteer in your community. Lots of places are looking for volunteers. Try your local Special Olympics office, youth camps, church, community garden, food banks, or local senior citizen centers. Also, you can look for places where you have an opportunity to work with young people with or without disabilities. As a leader you make an impact on others by being a role model or getting others involved.
Being a mentor is a great way to make an impact. Some mentoring programs are as easy as just being a friend to a child who needs one. Statistics show that kids who are mentored succeed greatly. Some of those statics are:
Start a website for teens by teens. Offer information and support for teens. Ask a local community service to host it for you. Have a list of community services you can offer as referrals to kids in trouble or who are just lonely and need something to do during the summer. Put up helpful and upbeat articles of interest to other teens. Provide quizzes and puzzles. Make it a place other teens will want to come to for positive, encouraging, and supportive information and resources.
Do you love outdoor sports? Volunteer to coach your local Special Olympics team or play in a Unified Sports league. Or, do a little research and see if you have an Outdoor Education Center or Park Program in your area. Often these Centers offer programs for people with special needs and they nearly always need volunteers to help. What could be better than helping someone experience the joy of playing a sport.
Another option is to find out if there is a wheelchair sports program in your community. There are a lot of fine athletes who are confined to wheelchairs, still active and very competitive. Besides basketball, some wheelchair sports groups play rugby, hockey, tennis and softball. Get some friends together and challenge them to a game. You might be surprised who wins!
Bring some joy to a senior citizens facility. Not all senior citizens facilities are the same. They vary from having active seniors to bed-ridden individuals. But everybody has the same need – to know someone else cares. Why not throw a party for some folks in such a facility? It can be as simple as just bringing in some balloons and visiting with people (don’t worry about what to say – most of them will be happy to do the talking!). Or it can be as elaborate as performing a “show” for them. Gather some of your Special Olympics friends who can play music, sing, do card tricks, read poetry or tell stories – put it all together and make some people happy! They’ll talk about it for weeks.
If you or someone you know has a summer birthday, throw a birthday party but instead of gifts ask people to make a contribution to Special Olympics or another cause. Better yet, gather friends with birthdays in the same month and see how much you can raise!
These are just a few of the many ways that you canmake an impact as a youth leader during your summer vacation. Look around your community and talk to others about ways to volunteer. Don’t forget to get your friends involved. Be a role model and have fun with whatever you decide to do.
“If you have heart and determination in your life, then nothing can get in the way of your dreams!” ~Author Unknown
With the school year finally coming to an end, we wanted to share an inspiring speech to graduating seniors from college student Haylie Bernacki. Her advice to students: your involvement with Project UNIFY and SO College has prepared you for a bright and impactful future.
As classes end and summer begins, we all dream about our summer plans; not a care in the world…but not this summer. Not this year. This year we leave behind four years of our life, looking towards the future to start anew.
You may ask us if we are scared, anxious, or even intimated by what lies ahead. But I can tell you with confidence, assurance, and pride that we have the tools it takes to make our way in this world. We have been given the opportunity to see ourselves in a new light, the opportunity to build lasting relationships, the opportunity to say we were a part of something greater.
As we look back on our four years, we have learned to look at people for their abilities, that we are more similar than different; we have learned the power of a smile. There will be times in our life when the road seems unclear, but that will not faze us. How could it? We have had the best teachers in the world.
Our teachers are Special Olympics Athletes.
Without Special Olympics College in our lives, we would have not been able to learn from the best. We would have not been able to gain the wisdom the athletes had to offer. I can say with confidence that without Special Olympics College, we would not be the people we are today.
Today we can enter the world with the ability to see the goodness in life. We can enter the work force and see our co-workers for their abilities and the strengths they provide. We can enter graduate school with a better understanding of how we can make a difference.
We graduate today with a better understanding of life, what truly matters, and where we are headed.
About the Authors: Clement Coulston and Danielle Liebl are members of the Special Olympics Project UNIFY® National Youth Activation Committee. They recently attended the National Service Learning Conference to network, share and learn with other youth, teachers, and organizations throughout the world.
In looking at the problems facing society today, one can grow hopeless and overwhelmed to address those challenges. Too often, humanity looks at youth as energetic individuals, but neglects to utilize us as competent individuals to work to address societal issues. Our community is at a loss from not making use of this untapped potential and creativity.
However, at the 23rd National Service Learning Conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, we witnessed the power of youth engagement, passion for change, and leadership. Many youth from various organizations gathered to raise awareness for various causes, like recycling programs and using sports as a catalyst for social change. Experiencing and embracing youth leadership made us ponder how we often define the word, “leadership.”
What does leadership mean to you?
Ability to take a stance? The person who is academically talented, athletic, and popular? These are some of the common descriptions people associate with being a leader. We are going to propose to you a new perspective.
Through our work with Special Olympics Project UNIFY, we challenge the meaning of leadership to identify, utilize, and embrace the talent of each person to contribute to the community. In the past, the input of youth with disabilities has been undermined and even unincorporated in many of the core activities at schools. This has propelled us to evaluate how youth are integrated into the school to ensure each person not only has a voice, but are provided meaningful opportunities to be engaged!
We are shifting the paradigm of leadership from leadership of the few, to co-leadership, where each person is a leader by sharing their talents with the community. We are improving the educational system by including youth input. We are providing a new perspective and unique proposals in addressing some of the problems faced today.
We challenge you to see your colleagues and peers as valued and talented individuals who have talents to share! However, we must open our eyes to their ability, rather than look down upon their challenges.
We see talent and ability first, do you?
Today we’re featuring a guest post from Teri Dary on school climate and inclusion. Teri has a wealth of experience as an educator and currently co-chairs SEANet Executive Board and works as the Service-Learning Consultant at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about making your school climate inclusive of all students, then you’ll definitely want to read on.
Creating an inclusive school climate is important work. Conducting this work in the context of engaging youth in developing a shared vision is even more powerful. While adults can be effective in creating the conditions for an inclusive school, it is the youth who can bring those conditions to life. The tendency in our adult-centered world is to identify an issue we would like to address and then devise solutions we believe will help to alleviate the problem. The piece we miss is to partner with youth in the process.
Let’s take the issue of schools that are less inclusive than we would like them to be. If we turn only to the adults around us in analyzing and addressing these concerns, we might come up with solutions like changing lunch or class schedules, proving more opportunities for diverse students to interact, and teaching lessons on tolerance and acceptance.
But who is it that really knows the day-to-day realities of living and learning in the school? Who knows what it is like to walk down the halls and not know the names of your classmates because you don’t have classmates, clubs, or even friends in common? The only people in the school who really know how the social and academic worlds collide, who know how that impacts relationships, and who know what it feels like to be part of that culture are the students. If we are to really address the issues around creating an inclusive school climate, we absolutely need to meaningfully engage our youth in identifying, defining, and solving the challenges we face.
So what solutions might youth come up with that are any different than those adults have already thought of? My conversations with youth on this topic have opened my eyes to some pretty intriguing solutions. One student talked to me about feeling frustrated because he never has the opportunity to interact with students with intellectual disabilities because he takes all higher level classes. He wondered why we can’t have inclusive clubs in our schools, including such groups as Student Council and National Honor Society. Another asked why special education classrooms are located in the far corners of our schools, and why we can’t ensure that there are natural opportunities for students to interact between and within classes?
If we are to address inclusive school climate effectively, let’s engage youth in meaningful ways in the process. Adults don’t need to be the front of all knowledge and problem solvers of all that needs to be solved. Real change will happen when we partner with the amazing youth around us, give them the freedom to innovate and create, providing them with the skills, knowledge, and support they need to be successful along the way.
Last week Project UNIFY youth leaders Soeren Palumbo and Danielle Liebl presented the keynote address at the Character Education Partnership National Forum. Below you will find a reflection from Charles Haynes, Senior Scholar at the First Amendment Center, who attended the conference, as well as an excerpt from Danielle’s speech. Our youth leaders are amazing and inspiring!
October 21, 2011 was a day of “firsts” at the Character Education Partnership National Forum in San Francisco, California.
Danielle Liebl and Soeren Palumbo, two extraordinary Project UNIFY youth leaders, took the stage as the first student keynote speakers in the 18-year history of the Character Education Partnership (CEP). And their topic – “Creating Environments of Inclusion” – was the first-ever plenary session devoted entirely to the issues surrounding students with developmental disabilities in our schools.
Speaking to hundreds of the nation’s leading character educators, Soeren deftly linked the work of Special Olympics Project UNIFY to the core mission of CEP. He focused on the urgent need to create caring school communities that include all students, emphasizing the critical importance of student voice in those efforts. And he told the moving story of his sister Olivia’s experience as a student with a developmental disability in a school that takes inclusion seriously.
Danielle’s speech was a heartfelt account of how she found the inner strength to stand up for herself – and for all students with intellectual disabilities. Although she suffered from name-calling and harassment, Danielle responded not with bitterness or anger – but with courage and compassion. By creating a Partner’s Club promoting friendship between students with and without disabilities, Danielle demonstrated how a youth leader can help transform a school’s culture.
After Soeren and Danielle spoke, there was not a dry eye in the room. Everyone rose to their feet as one to applaud the message of inclusion – a message delivered from the heart by two remarkable young people. As people lined up afterwards to thank Soeren and Danielle (and give them an embrace), I knew that CEP and the character education movement would now do more to address issues of inclusion.
Thank you Danielle and Soeren for being such powerful ambassadors for Special Olympics Project UNIFY – and for all you have done and will do to inspire others to act with courage and conviction.
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Read an excerpt from Danielle’s speech and be inspired by her powerful words and actions:
Before I continue telling my story, I would like to introduce myself; I am Danielle Liebl, an upcoming sophomore at the College of Saint Benedict in Minnesota and a Special Olympics athlete for more than nine years. At birth, I acquired Cerebral Palsy. Cerebral Palsy is a disorder the affects my muscle control, coordination, motor skills, and simple movements such as standing, walking, breathing, eating, and learning. Cerebral Palsy is not only considered a physical disability but also a developmental disability as well. For most of my high school career I was considered “Special Ed.” As most of you already know, Special Education has a stereo-type, and personally I disapprove of it.
When I was in school bullying tended to be a regular occurrence for me. My peers started calling me names such as: stupid, ugly, or the one that I think is the most creative, four legs.
Little do these bullies realize, even though we can’t do some of the same things they can do…we can do some things BETTER than they can do. My fellow Special Olympics teammates hated the fact that other students thought this way and they wanted it to change because they felt excluded.
This is exactly what I did. When I was a junior in high school, I attended the Special Olympics Global Youth Summit in Boise, Idaho. This led me to act out my desire to start a Partners Club with my best friend and unified partner. Partners Club provides an environment where students with and without disabilities can establish relationships as friends. The first year, the club contained fifteen students. Due to this club, you could see the change in the hallways; they were high-fiving and conversing in the hallways. But most importantly they considered each other friends.
Even though the movement has started there is a lot of change that still needs to happen. But this change is ultimately up to the youth. They want to change and shape their future; they want to have a voice. Are you willing to guide them? One of my favorite teachers once said to me, “Danielle, as much as I want to make this world the best it can be for you, I can’t. You have to do it yourself. If I did it for you, what kind of teacher would I be? I would not be teaching you that YOU can change the world. But always remember I am always here to GUIDE you.”
Are you willing to be that teacher to your students? Together let us learn, and possibly even teach each other a few things. Because someday, our desire for social justice will become a reality. And when that day comes we will be able to stand up and say that we have changed history.
