Special Olympics Jamaica (SOJ) celebrated the 2016 Eunice Kennedy Shriver Day (EKS) on September 24 by offering free health screening to over 120 children with intellectual disabilities from ages four to 14 in Westmoreland.

The health screening was held at Llandilo Special School and was quick on the heels of the recent UNICEF grant to Special Olympics Jamaica.

As part of the Special Olympics healthy athletes programme, screening was carried out in five areas: eye, dental, ear and foot care, as well as overall fitness.

The team that travelled from Kingston included Dr Dawn Woo, Dr Jackie Gayle, Dr Georgia Beavers, Dr Patricia Lu Chin, Nurse Norman Duncan, Dr Dawn Stephenson, Dr Tameka Stephenson, Captain Shirley Tomlinson, and the Colgate unit supervised by dental nurse Rosemarie Locke.

Support was also provided by Dr Leonard Cox and his team of doctors from the western belt of the island.

Special guests included Lucy Meyer, global ambassador for Special Olympics and US Fund for UNICEF, and Ashlee Barrett, the Miss Jamaica World 2016.

The Miss Jamaica organisation has for some time been working with Special Olympics Jamaica to help build awareness for people with intellectual disabilities.

Lucy Meyer, 17-year-old Special Olympics athlete, who said sport has changed her life, said she is committed to assist in raising funds to help Jamaica.

Lorna Bell, the SOJ executive director, who declined to give the value of the UNICEF grant, said the local body will be better able to host specific events and to develop its programmes.

She stressed the importance of the healthy athletes screening. She insisted that athletes should have proper medical examinations done to qualify them to participate in global Special Olympics events.

Jamaica are gearing up to send a team to the Special Olympics Winter Games in Austria next March.

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

The programme offers these individuals the opportunity to develop physical fitness, experience joy, participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families and other Special Olympics athletes.

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. It is celebrated on the last Saturday of each September.

Kennedy Shriver, who died in 2009, founded Special Olympics in the 1950s.