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Special Olympics New Zealand's vision is to enable intellectually disabled members of the community to lead positive, useful lives.
It achieves this by encouraging its members to participate in a wide range of sporting activities, and offering athletes opportunities to compete at regional, national and international levels.
Today New Zealand leads the world with the highest percentage of intellectually disabled persons actively participating in Special Olympic sports, including swimming, track and field, indoor bowls and snow skiing.
Since 1996, SKYCITY Auckland has provided almost $2 million in funding to this hardworking organisation.
Special Olympics New Zealand Street Appeal
On 1 and 2 April 2005, SKYCITY sponsored and organised the Special Olympics Street Appeal.
Celebrities Jayne Kiely, Kerry Woodham, 250 volunteers and numerous Special Olympians were out in force to raise money to send local athletes to the Special Olympics New Zealand and Asia Pacific Games in Christchurch in November/December 2005.
The games are the pinnacle event in many New Zealand Special Olympian's careers. They offer them a pathway to represent New Zealand internationally. The next World Summer Games are in Shanghai in 2007.
Special Olympics NZ National & Asia Pacific Invitation Games
SKYCITY supported the Special Olympics National and Asia Pacific Games in Christchurch, 30 November - 3 December 2005. These games attracted over 1200 athletes from seven countries. Athletes competed in 11 sports, including 3 demonstration sports.
SKYCITY did its best to encourage and motivate participants. Prior to the games each participant received a 'good luck at the games' postcard from SKYCITY.
Special Olympics Schools Programme
Each year SKYCITY staff volunteer to assist at one of Special Olympics' Schools Athletics Days. SKYCITY staff act as track and field officials, undertaking jobs such as time keeping, measuring or presenting ribbons. This is a hugely rewarding experience for staff and many continue to volunteer year after year.
This year the SKYCITY Auckland Community Trust made a grant of $100,000 to support the Special Olympics Schools Programme. The programme involves over 1150 students. It coordinates school activities for the intellectually disabled on a national scale and involves sports such as athletics, soccer, tenpin bowling, basketball and swimming.
There is a growing demand for programmes such as this, in 2004 Auckland had 300 students participate, this grew to 586 by 2005.
Further Information
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