Greetings from Antoinette de Jager
Speech by Antoinette de Jager at the Ontario Special Olympics Event on May 1st, 2014 at Centennial College
My name is Antoinette de Jager. I work with the Hon. Judy Sgro who is the member of Parliament for York West. We received an invitation to the Special Olympics day for children, fun day by the Turkish Society of Canada. We always attend many of the events we possibly can because they are truly intercultural . They work with all aspects within community. Today is a prime example. You have the Special Olympics children that are being invited to take part in this fun athletic day so they are reaching out to all communities not just the Turkish community which is a very wonderful thing for them to do. It is the type of work that we like to do in our office . We reach out to as many communities as we can in the same fashion as they do. So when we were introduced to them it was a very good click. We worked together very well with them . From what I can see right now, you got quite a few students that are taking part. It looks like it is an ongoing, growing event. I suspect that one of these days this will be taking place in Canada Center or at the Skydome because it is so popular. The children here look like they are having a wonderful time. They are excited to be here they want to take part of it and it makes you feel good to know that even though they are classified as special needs children they are not being treated any differently by the community because of the special needs that they may have. And that is wonderful to see because then their confidence is built up their ability to do things is increased because they are allowed to try. All aspect of the community, all things within the community try different events, try different activities which has, as I said, builds up their confidence and makes them feel like they are just the regular child that has absolutely no special needs and can do anything they want in the world
Do you have any recommendation to people to make this organisation bigger and better?
The best recommendation I have for people is to contribute. Events such as this are being held by non-profit organisations. Organisations they do not have money, sitting in their backpockets that they can use to put together events like this. They can2t do this by themselves. They need the community, they need the sponsors, they need corporations to come down take a look at what is being done, see what a wonderful job they are doing, how productive it is, how it is growing each year, and say you know what, I want to be a part of them. I want to help them make it better and bigger and reach out to more children each year so I am going to make a financial contribution to them or I am going to make the contribution by providing them with the space they can use rent free. Those are the type of things corporations need to do. Those are the type of things the funders outside need to do. They need to come out here and extend the hand and help in any way that they can so these groups can continue to do the work they need to do.
Thank you!
