>> As Seattle gets ready to welcome
the 2018 Special Olympics USA Games,
we all have an important role to play in
creating a region of inclusion that welcomes everyone.
The games could be a galvanizing force
for greater awareness and
appreciation of what people with
intellectual disabilities can contribute.
>> We recently caught up with Tim Shriver,
Chairman of Special Olympics to learn more about
the history behind the games including how his mother,
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, turned her vision into
the world's foremost movement empowering people
with disabilities to show up and be seen.
>> Your family is
deeply involved in the Special Olympics,
can you tell us how it got started?
>> The Special Olympics Movement was started in Chicago,
1968 was the first games with a thousand people with
intellectual challenges on the field
claiming to be Olympic,
to be the best of humanity,
exactly the opposite of what the world had seen.
That moment in time had
its roots in the history of my mother's family,
one of her sister, Rosemary,
her older sister, was
born with an intellectual disability.
They grew up, my mom did especially with love of
her sister understanding of
the need in some ways to be protective,
but also with kind of a fierce determination to
change the culture that was around them,
which did not include their sister.
There were no schools, there
were no healthcare institutions,
there were no rehabilitation programs,
there were no employment support, there was nothing.
My mom's genius was to think we could use sports,
we could do what is so
intuitive and natural to all of us,
would just play together and by doing so we might
actually shift the culture
to emphasize inclusion for everybody,
the dignity of each human being.
>> Today, all of you young athletes are in the arena.
Many of you will win,
but even more important I know you will be
brave and bring credit
to your parents and to your country.
Let us begin the Olympics. Thank you.
>> So, one of the mottos
is "it's so much more than sports."
Can you talk about that and what the games mean to you?
>> We don't just do sports,
but we do inclusive early childhood,
inclusive schools, inclusive health programs,
we are the largest public health program in
the world for people with intellectual disabilities.
We teach what we call inclusive leadership.
What would it look like to become a leader if you
knew and understood the experiences
of those on the margins,
which is the gift our special needs
athletes bring to their peers into the culture.
I'd like us to think that every school in
America would have
a Special Olympics Unified Sports Team.
Let's celebrate the fact that sports can
be a platform where everybody can
claim their value not
their label of whatever separates us,
but their value as a contributing member of society.
>> Can you tell us a little bit about how the games
grew and evolved over the course of 50 years?
>> It's an amazing story Brad,
it's a story really mostly of volunteerism.
When we think of having five or six million athletes
involved in the movement every year,
99 percent of our workforce is volunteers
at civic organizations, faith-based institutions,
corporate partners who give their people the chance,
really the privilege of volunteering.
That's the story of our movement.
First, one country then 10,
then 20, then 30,
today 172 countries have
independent Special Olympics organizations,
110,000 games a year in little villages,
in the developing world,
and big cities like Seattle.
These games are all invitations for us to come
together to see in someone else goodness,
possibility, where maybe in
the past you'd seen something different.
That's no longer a person with
a disability, it's a point guard.
All of a sudden our hearts open
to some basic human value,
I think that's quite powerful.
>> As the premier partner for these USA games,
Microsoft is proud to join
with Special Olympics in bringing
our region together to create
more inclusive communities where everyone is welcome.
Find out how you can get involved
by going to specialolympicsusagames.org.