The Special Olympics need a lot of planning. Some 30,000 volunteers are needed when the games come to Ireland next year, for tasks ranging from translation to tea-making. Who is signing up and to do what?
What do Zambia and Cootehill have in common? Singapore and Arklow? El Salvador and Tralee? Barbados and Portarlington? These are just four of the pairings in the host plans for the Special Olympics that are to be held here in June 2003.
Like any major sporting event - and the Special Olympics World Summer Games is the biggest sporting event in the world next year - a huge amount of forward planning is necessary.
Some 38,000 athletes, their coaches and accompanying family and friends, will arrive in Ireland for a fortnight on June 16th, 2003. From the time they arrive to the time of their departure, they will be guests of the country, something which will only be possible with the aid of an enormous nationwide support system.
The Special Olympics are a year-round training programme for children and adults with learning difficulties, and were founded by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, in 1968. The athletes train for several types of competition, including national, European and international games. The international games take place every four years; the last games were in South Carolina, in the US, in 1999. Next year will be the first time the games will be held outside the US, and the logistics involved in hosting so many people are staggering.
When the athletes and their families arrive, they'll be flying into Dublin, Belfast and Shannon, where they will be met by representatives from their host towns. They will then travel onwards to the host towns for four days rest, acclimatisation and entertainment, before heading to Dublin for the nine days of the games.
There are 52 venues in Dublin to be manned for those nine days, including sporting and accommodation venues. And then there's the trifling matter of transporting thousands of people across the city in tourist-season traffic. Thousands of volunteers will be needed for the Special Olympics - 30,000 in all. The host town programme was launched earlier this year, and that element is running smoothly to date. Towns and villages throughout Ireland have been allocated delegations that will match them in size, and local committees have been established to find host families and to set up a welcome programme.
Sylvia Kehoe is a member of the Kilmore Quay committee, in Co Wexford, who will be hosting Guinea, from West Africa, a team of 12 people. They have already booked buses to take local people to Dublin each day for the games to support Guinea.
"We have a core group of 10 local people so far," says Kehoe, "and we'll need about 100 by the time the delegation are here." She's confident of getting the volunteers, who will offer everything, from accommodation and catering, to entertainment. "There will be a lot of donations-in-kind, where we'll be offered services," she explains, a scenario which will be repeated throughout the country.
The Guinean athletes can look forward to experiencing a flavour of the local culture and scenery. "We'll be making the most of what we have here. We'll be taking them out on a trip to the Saltee Islands. It's a whole other little world out there. And we'll have music - Irish and African - to make them feel at home."
Once in Dublin, the athletes will be staying in the Citywest Hotel or campus accommodation at UCD and DCU. It is in the capital where the biggest numbers of volunteers will be needed. "We are looking for everybody, across all ages," stresses Maria Maguire, who is co-ordinating the first-aid volunteers through the Order of Malta, and whose daughter, Síle, competed in gymnastics in North Carolina. The first aid element of the games alone will involve 24-hour cover at all accommodation centres, as well as at sporting venues during the day, and they will be providing 25 ambulances a day.
"A mature lady asked me last week if she was too old to volunteer: the message needs to go out that everyone has something to offer, and that we are not only looking for people with sports-related skills," Maguire says. "Somebody making the tea is doing a very important job, and older people have time to offer that working people don't have. And we're also wondering if we can tap into the students who will just have finished their Leaving Cert, and who might have time before they go onto their next thing."
Just as a potential volunteer does not have to be exclusively young or with direct experience of sports, nor do they have to be personally connected with Special Olympics. Peter Kavanagh is an equestrian instructor who has volunteered to help out with the riding events at Kill, and he has no family connection with the games at all.
"I wasn't long back in Ireland after living away for years, when I saw the ad looking for people. Before that, I knew nothing about the Special Olympics," he says. "I used to do some riding for the disabled in England, and I thought I could offer the skills I had. It's the first time the games will be in Ireland, and I wanted to be part of it. I tell everyone I come in contact with that I've volunteered, and I try to get them interested, too."
TO volunteer for Dublin, you must be at least 16 years old, and willing to go through a routine background security check. Preference will be given to those who can offer the most days of availability, but the reality is that everyone is welcome to offer whatever time they can. Training will be given, and you have an option of choosing where you will be placed. You have to fix up your own transport and accommodation while in Dublin. And you must be willing to observe the no smoking, no alcohol policy at all venues - not an inconsiderable undertaking.
Special Olympics are looking for volunteers for a huge range of jobs. Do you speak Icelandic? Or Bengali? Or Tagalog, Cantonese, or Hungarian? They need translators, drivers, caterers, medical workers, stewards, people with a knowledge of sports, journalists, IT people to maintain the website, admin people for accreditation, tea-makers, security workers, fundraisers and scores of other people. They need, in short, Everyman and Everywoman - and they need 30,000 of them.
• The Volunteer Hotline is manned, Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 01-8691700. Special Olympics website: www.2003specialolympics.com
FACTS ABOUT THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS
Founded in 1968 in the US by Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the 2003 Special Olympics games will be the first ones held outside the US. The opening ceremony of the 2003 games will take place at Croke Park on June 21st, 2003. The Games close on June 29th.
• No of athletes: 7,000
• No of coaches and officials: 3,000
• No of accompanying friends and family: 28,000
• Media representitives attending: 1,500
• No of participating countries: 160
• No of Irish host towns: 168
• No of volunteers needed: 30,000
• Cost of staging the games in Ireland: €30.4 million, with €10.1 million already committed by the Government, and Bank of Ireland being the main partner.
• Sports in the Special Olympics: aquatics, athletics, badminton, basketball, bocce (a type of bowls), bowling, cycling, equestrian, football, golf, gymnastics, kayaking, pitch and putt, powerlifting, sailing, table tennis, tennis, team handball, volleyball, judo.
• Athletes' Oath: "Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt."
