01:00:00.208,01:00:04.875
Every country has more to learn from people with intellectual
disabilities than they have currently learned.
01:00:04.875,01:00:08.042
I say that we have more to learn as a community of nations.
01:00:21.375,01:00:25.042
[TEXT: Sports in America "The Best Teacher"]
01:00:27.875,01:00:29.667
Special Olympics was founded in 1968.
01:00:29.667,01:00:36.042
[TEXT: Tim Shriver, Chairman and CEO, Special Olympics]
It was a time in which people in the United States saw
people with intellectual disabilities as real liabilities.
01:00:36.042,01:00:42.500
It’s the year in which the institutionalized population of people
with intellectual disabilities reached its peak.
01:00:42.500,01:00:46.708
And in that environment my mother, who'd grown up
with a sister with an intellectual disability
01:00:46.708,01:00:50.708
and knew that to be the wrong approach, was experimenting.
01:00:50.708,01:00:56.875
Forty-plus years later, the movement now has
50,000 little competitions every year.
01:00:56.875,01:01:01.625
And in that small event they strike out at injustice,
which is still prevalent,
01:01:01.625,01:01:06.083
and they challenge intolerance,
which is still epidemic around the world.
01:01:06.083,01:01:12.792
And they create the largest global movement
dedicated to the idea that every person counts.
01:01:12.792,01:01:18.375
When we think of great diplomats, how many people would think
of a 15-year-old with Down Syndrome
01:01:18.375,01:01:24.083
as an agent of diplomatic healing,
communication, understanding? But they are.
01:01:24.083,01:01:28.042
Play on a team with a Special Olympics athlete.
Maybe for a week, maybe for a season.
01:01:28.042,01:01:31.667
If every child had that experience,
we’d have a different definition of what it means
01:01:31.667,01:01:34.708
to create communities of acceptance and welcome for all.
01:01:34.708,01:01:38.958
The average Special Olympics athlete
who comes to the races, comes to the venues,
01:01:38.958,01:01:43.708
raises his or her arms in victory and says “I’m a champion!” —
that’s the best teacher we can get.
[TEXT: Every Play Matters
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