National Director for Special Olympics in Malawi (SOIM), Enid Mauluka, says 55 coaches have been trained in special olympics in order to impart them with skills on issues surrounding intellectual disability.
Speaking in an interview, Mauluka said the four-day training will help the coaches to be able to identify people with intellectual disability in the district.
“The training was aimed at equipping coaches on issues surrounding intellectual disability, the causes, preventative measures and how they will be able to identify people with intellectual disability. They have also been equipped with coaching skills for unified sports,” said Mauluka.
She noted that most of the time, people with disabilities are discriminated against or abused in communities, schools and work places, saying SOIM believes that inclusive sports may help to address such issues.
District Education Sports Officer (DESO) for Likoma, Samson Nyirenda, said special olympics in the district will help in the identification of learners with intellectual disability.
“We will be targeting learners with disabilities in classes. It’s not that these learners are mentally disabled, but we usually look at those who have other problems in various ways, so we asked SOIM to help us in training the coaches so that they should be able to improve lives of those learners,” said Nyirenda.
Participants to the training were drawn from various sectors which included health, police, education, council secretariat and the community.
One of the participants, Christopher Nkhonya, said special olympics games are important because they promote inclusiveness in all aspects