SECRETARY-GENERAL OPENS SPECIAL OLYMPICS EXHIBIT, SAYS GAMES CAN ADVANCE STRUGGLE

AGAINST DISCRIMINATION; CITES EXPECTED HISTORIC ADOPTION OF DISABILITIES TREATY

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s remarks today at the opening of the 2007 Shanghai Special Olympics exhibit in New York:

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to the United Nations for this very special exhibition.

Sport can play an important role in changing people’s lives for the better.  It can build self-esteem, leadership skills, community spirit and bridges across ethnic or communal divides.

For the intellectually disabled, sport is a way to transcend commonly held ideas about their abilities, as well as their aspirations.

That is why the Special Olympics are such a seminal celebration: they provide a platform for gifted athletes like Qia Meli [Special Olympian co-opening exhibit] to excel; and to show to others, as well as themselves, their tremendous potential.

Qia Meli and her fellow Special Olympians are inspirations for all of us.  Every day, they have to fight to overcome not only their disability, but also the discrimination faced by all who suffer intellectual disabilities.  In this, they are not just athletes, but real heroes to be celebrated and supported.

Though they face uncommon challenges, the intellectually disabled don’t demand uncommon treatment.  Instead, like people everywhere, they seek only to be treated equally and fairly, and to be provided the same opportunities as anyone else.

I am particularly delighted that, next year, Shanghai will become the first Asian venue for the Special Olympics World Summer Games.

The needs of the intellectually disabled remain achingly unaddressed in the developing world.  The high profile of the Special Olympics can help publicise these needs, as well as the contributions that the intellectually disabled can and do make within our communities.

More broadly, the Games can advance the worldwide struggle against discrimination, while spreading this Forum’s message of “Special Olympics for Social Harmony”.

For all of us at UN Headquarters, this Special Olympics Forum is also an occasion to recall that the enjoyment of all human rights by all people not only encapsulates the spirit of the Games, but also lies at the heart of our own work.

In a few weeks time, the General Assembly is expected to adopt a historic international convention -- already agreed in committee -- to protect and promote the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities.

I have high hopes that this long overdue convention will mark the beginning of a new era in which disabled individuals will have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.

Now I am sure all of you are anxious to see this exhibit open, so let me delay it no further.

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For information media • not an official record