24 Jun 2013

Primary schools in the southern region recently converged at Kuto Primary School in Kanye for a three-day special Olympic Games for pupils with special learning needs to afford them platform to showcase their talent.

Speaking during the ceremony, principal education officer, Mr Gokgonamang Ntshiamisang said the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) had a pastoral policy that promoted sporting activities and psycho-social support to enhance the wellbeing of students with special learning needs.

He explained that sport helped students to release energy, freshen up from the rigorous everyday classroom activities and come back renewed to face another day.

Ntshiamisang said it was not easy to deal with students with special learning needs hence applauded special unit teachers for their patience, adding the activities, if held consistently, would afford the pupils technical awareness and further mould them into all rounded individuals.

One of the attendants, also a rehabilitation officer, Luis Moffat pleaded with the attendants to love and support people living with disabilities. He lamented that people living with disabilities faced challenges that the so called 'normal' people did not always have.

Moelatlhoko Lenyaola, deputy school head at Dikhukhung Primary School explained that special Olympic Games started in the United States of America in 1968, by a social worker called Eunice Kennedy.

He said they were founded on the premise that people living with disabilities could, with proper instruction and encouragement, learn, enjoy and benefit from participation in individual and team sports.

He said Botswana joined the games in 1990 with the view to promote the spirit of socialisation among the beneficiaries and also give them a platform to exhibit their talent. ENDS