The Open Hands Initiative would like to congratulate all of those who participated in the 7th Regional Special Olympics, which took place this year in Syria from September 25 to October 3. More than 2,500 athletes from 23 countries across the Middle East and North Africa convened in Damascus to compete in sporting events from aquatics to table tennis.<\/p>\n
UNICEF, a partner in the Special Olympics since 2007, noted<\/a> how \u201cchildren with disabilities have the same rights as all other children, including the right to develop to their full potential.\u201d<\/p>\n The success of the Regional Special Olympics serves not only as a testament to Syria\u2019s commitment to celebrating people with disabilities and improving their inclusiveness in society, but also as evidence of the changing attitudes towards disability throughout the region. By promoting international cooperation, dialogue, and awareness, the Special Olympics play an important role in bringing the rights and conditions of the disabled to the forefront of civil discourse around the world.<\/p>\n Learn more about the Special Olympics in Syria and throughout the world at the official Special Olympics<\/a> website and see coverage from the event at UNICEF<\/a>. You can also\u00a0 see who took home the gold<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Open Hands Initiative would like to congratulate all of those who participated in the 7th Regional Special Olympics, which took place this year in Syria from September 25 to October 3. More than 2,500 athletes from 23 countries across the Middle East and North Africa convened in Damascus to compete in sporting events from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,12],"tags":[23],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability-and-accessibility","category-syria","tag-special-olympics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":530,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openhandsinitiative.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}