Student-athletes from schools across the island teamed up with Special Olympics Bermuda on a day of uplifting competition at Dame Flora Duffy Stadium on Monday.

For the first time, Special Olympics Bermuda teamed up with the Department of Education’s Adaptive Physical Education programme at the Special Olympics Bermuda Invitational Games in an attempt to identify new talent ahead of the USATF Grand Prix meeting, which takes place in Bermuda on Sunday, April 28.

Director of Sports Quennel Robinson, known as “Coach Q” to the many talented youngsters in attendance on Monday, had his scouting eye on display and was keen to affirm the joy he gets out of coaching young people with disabilities.

“Today we are using some of our events to qualify those athletes who will be competing at the USATF Grand Prix,” Robinson said.

“This is the proving ground for some of those athletes. The coaches at the schools and myself, the Ministry of Education and the Adaptive PE Team, we encourage all athletes with intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities to love sport and I’m getting to see personally how much talent we have coming out of the group.

“When it comes to these guys, there is a joy that bubbles up in your spirit. To see the unification of everybody is amazing and you realise that people are just people. You get to appreciate their talents because honestly they have some talents that we don’t have and you can appreciate that and learn from them, so it’s a beautiful thing.”

Sacha Richardson, Chair of Special Olympics Bermuda, is one of the powerhouses behind the organisation, and she used the event to underline the importance that visibility will bring at the Grand Prix later this month.

“It’s extremely important,” Richardson said.

“I am the chair of the disability advisory council and I am a disability advocate and I have seen a lot of progress over the years as far as how the community views disability and inclusion.

“This is another avenue to let people see not just that people with disabilities can do things but they can do things well and be acknowledged and celebrated for their achievements.

“They are able to do marvellous things so we want to create an opportunity for them that the public don’t ordinarily see on a day-to-day basis. It’s one thing for the athlete to display their talents to their peers, their family and their friends but another to do it on the massive scale that is the USATF Grand Prix. For them to be competing alongside professional elite athletes is good for both sides.”

Diallo Rabain, Minister of Education, was on hand for the opening ceremony with competitors walking down the track and carrying a version of the Special Olympic torch, and he was keen to stress the importance of an event such as this

“It’s critically important for us to embrace all of our students and meet them where they are,” Rabain said.

“When we talk about the education reform process that we are undertaking one of the major things we talked about was that each child needs an individual path to success and feed that back into the collective of what needs to be done in order for our students to excel. Events such as this for students with exceptionalities are ones that I look forward to every year and I am happy to be here.

“I think sport is critically important as it promotes camaraderie, partnership and the ability to work together.

“Sport is something that is being looked at when we talk about education reform and how it can become more integrated into the system. At Primary and Middle School levels they do it quite a bit but at senior school it curbs off, so that is something that we are definitely looking to make some changes with, but overall I encourage sports throughout our island, especially for our young people. It’s also a way of students meeting other students from other schools that they may not have met before, so it’s an important part of our agenda.”

Special Olympics Bermuda has some big plans, including the creation of a wall of fame at the national stadium, but funding is tough with the organisation keen to encourage sponsorship.

“Like with any charity times are hard and we are fighting quite a few other nonprofits to get the funding that we require,” Richardson said.

“One of the issues that we have is Special Olympics, as a whole, has so many international programmes but because we are in Bermuda it becomes a little more difficult because of location.

“We do a lot beyond sports as there are leadership programmes, health and medical organisations but we cannot always initiate and implement them because of the challenges we face, so any funding would help to be be able to find the additional resources for those programmes.

“We’re also looking to erect a wall of fame here similar to the Olympic monument. We celebrate those who have been able to go there, so there is no reason why our athletes should not be celebrated in the same way.

“We’re in the process of developing what we would want that to look like and put together a proposal towards the NSC. We want something that will last for generations so we need to be intentional about how we do it.”

*Anybody wishing to help Special Olympic Bermuda with a donation or commercial sponsorship should visit the organisation’s Facebook page or e-mail Bermudaspecialolympics@gmail.com.