KOTA SAMARAHAN, August 20: Parents of healthy, disabled children should encourage them to take up special sporting programmes to cultivate their athletic skills, said Minister of Welfare, Community Wellbeing, Women, Family and Childhood Development Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.
She explained that participants of such programmes would also benefit from the health checks that come with these programmes, besides having access to sporting facilities.
“Besides that, our special children could also live a more meaningful life while at the same time contribute to society while having fun,” she said at the closing of the three-day Special Olympics (SO) Sarawak Games Kuching Chapter 2018 at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) here this afternoon.
The sixth edition of this biennial event will be hosted by the Sibu Chapter in 2020.
Fatimah hoped all divisions in the state would have a chapter each so that more special children would have the opportunities to showcase their athletic abilities and possibly represent the state and country in Special Olympics at all levels.
“This is what we want to achieve through these (SO) games. Hopefully, after this, more chapters would be set up, for example like Samarahan or Bintulu chapters. The more the merrier so that there will be more opportunities for our special children and athletes in every division,” said Fatimah.
A total of 212 special athletes from Miri, Sibu and Kuching participated in the state-level SO this year. They competed in various events such as athletics, tenpin bowling, football, swimming and bocce. — DayakDaily
