Yunus Tughra: Celebrating International Children’s Day with Special Olympics
It was a great pleasure for me to represent Special Olympics and to take part in the International Children’s Day celebration with the Turkish community. Our Turkish friends’ passion, commitment and dedication to our athletes and Special Olympics were commendable.
Undoubtedly, our athletes challenge themselves. They are committed, pushing themselves to do the best they can, whether they win or lose. With the involvement of our volunteers, our athletes build life-long friendships, which is extremely important to them. And for anyone who hasn’t been out to an event, come when you can. You’ll be totally hooked!
Special Olympics is the world’s largest sports organization for children and adults with an intellectual disability. We provide year-round training and competitions to more than 4.5 million athletes in over 170 countries. Special Olympics competitions are held every day, all around the world—including local, national and regional competitions, adding up to more than 70,000 events a year.
These competitions include the Special Olympics World Games, which alternate between summer and winter games. Special Olympics World Games are held every two years, the most recent of which were in Pyeongchang, South Korea in 2013. The next World Games will be the 2015 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Los Angeles, California in 2015.
Photography provided by Oktem Kustu.