A call to action

Mark Kennedy Shriver explains why you have to give a little back in life, writes DEAGLAN DE BREADUN

YOU GET more than you give from working with people who have developmental disabilities, says Mark Kennedy Shriver, son of the late Eunice and nephew of president John F Kennedy, senators Robert and Edward Kennedy and, of course, former US Ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith.

He was in Ireland recently to celebrate the First Global Eunice Kennedy Shriver Day, which will take place on the fourth Saturday of September every year.

“It’s not just a celebration of my mother’s life but a call to action, to include people with developmental disabilities in everyday life,” he said in an interview. “It’s an effort to, at least once a year, pause and see how we can include people with developmental disabilities more, in employment, in schools, in daily life.”

He doesn’t mind whether he’s known as Kennedy Shriver or just Shriver: “You can call me whatever you want.” But he wants to get across the message that, “People get more than they give, they really do, from the experience of interacting with people with developmental disabilities.”

His mother was the founder of the Special Olympics and they were both in Ireland when the Games took place here in 2003. The event was, as he recalls, “a fantastic success”.

Explaining his mother’s motivation, he says: “For her, a lot of it dated back to her sister Rosemary and the opportunities that she did not get. Mother regarded sports as a way to open up those doors that had been closed to Rosie. Whether it was sports or employment or housing or friendship – if athletes could show how well they did on the sports field, they would be included in other parts of life. She’s been proven absolutely correct.”

His brother, Timothy, is chairman and chief executive of the Special Olympics and Mark runs US programmes for the charity, Save the Children. “We run literacy and health programmes all across America, focused on kids living in poverty.”

Asked if there is a “Kennedy ethos” and whether his current activities reflect that, he replies: “There is a very strong sense that you need to do something with your life. When we were growing up, sitting around and not giving back was not an option.”

This was instilled by his parents: “My mother and father never missed a day of work.” His mother died last year but his father, Sargent Shriver, who set up the US Peace Corps under president Kennedy, is still alive and about to celebrate his 95th birthday on November 9th.

Mark didn’t feel different from anyone else when growing up as part of a high-profile family, although it was a “little odd” when history was being taught at high school or college. “You’re studying American history – and you’re studying what your uncles did or the War Against Poverty, which my dad ran for president Johnson.”

His mother was pregnant when she accompanied president Kennedy on his celebrated visit to Ireland at the end of June 1963, and Mark was born early the following year. He was here in 1981 during the Bobby Sands hunger strike. driving through Derry with John Hume and Eunice, some bricks were thrown at the car and he recalls that it was “a very tension-filled time”.

He came back in the mid-80s and then, of course, for the epic night at Croke Park on June 21st, 2003, when Muhammad Ali, Nelson Mandela and U2 among others turned up for the occasion, along with California’s Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenneger who is married to Mark’s sister, Maria Shriver.

Is it a problem having a Republican brother-in-law? “No, he’s been around since I was about 14, he’s been around for a long, long time and he’s like a brother to me.”

Although the governor and himself don’t agree on everything, Mark concedes that, “He’s done a good job, particularly on the environment in California and he’s been a great big supporter of Special Olympics – forever”.

On president Obama’s performance in office so far, Mark says: “There’s been a number of great and important changes, from that Healthcare Bill that passed, to avoiding a Depression.”

Mark lives with his wife, Jeanne Ripp Shriver, and their three children, aged between five and 12 years, in Bethesda, outside Washington DC. In 1994, at age of 30 years, Mark was elected to the State legislature of Maryland for a four-year term. He was re-elected in 1998 but he ran for election to the US Congress in 2002 and was narrowly defeated in the Democratic primary.

The following year he took up his current job with Save the Children. He’s now been out of electoral politics for seven years. “I love my work now. I ran non-profit [organisations] before I went into politics, and I love being with my kids and my wife. I like the balance.

“I guess you never say never, but I’m enjoying it now and I think there’s so many ways you can make a difference. My mom never got elected to office, my dad didn’t either, and yet they’ve created institutions that are going to outlive them.”