SPECIAL Olympics Jamaica (SOJ) will tomorrow host a number of activities in celebration of the sixth annual Eunice Kennedy Shriver (EKS) Day.

The local body is scheduled to stage a number of forums tomorrow morning as part of planning to aid development and to build awareness of the Special Olympics movement.

SOJ has also arranged to give sponsors, media personalities and well-wishers the chance to learn more about the game of bocce. Bocce is a sport in which players use an underarm action to bowl a ball at a target. Points are gained by the ball’s proximity to the target.

Athletes from the delegation to the Los Angeles World Games in the summer will be in attendance, as well as coordinators from all 14 parishes.

EKS Day is celebrated around the world in an effort to honour the life of Kennedy Shriver and the remarkable impact she has had on the Special Olympics International (SOI) movement.

Kennedy Shriver, who died in 2009, founded Special Olympics in the 1950s. It began as a backyard summer camp with dozens of children, and has grown into a global programme in excess of four million athletes across approximately 175 countries.

Her dream was for the continued improvement and transformation of the lives of the millions of people worldwide with intellectual disabilities who still live with diminished opportunities and social disrespect.

The EKS Day celebration acts as a global call to inspire people to support inclusion, acceptance

and unity for, and with people with intellectual disabilities.

It is celebrated on the last Saturday in each September.

The theme this year is ‘Let’s Change the Game’.

Timothy Shriver, the son of Eunice and the chairman of Special Olympics, said in a broadcast on the organisation’s website that he is “thrilled to join” in celebrating EKS Day 2015. He urged supporters to continue to inspire new followers and to drive the movement around the globe.

Special Olympics aims to provide year-round sports training and competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

The disabilities can be either acquired or genetic and can include cases of Down’s Syndrome, autism, traumatic brain injury and cerebral palsy.

— Sanjay Myers