The Importance of Inclusion: Guest Submission by Tianyi Xu, Special Olympics East Asia Youth Leader

I have been volunteering for Special Olympics since 2016. At first I just regarded it as helping my community but soon I began to see the large impact Special Olympics was having on my life. While Special Olympics has helped me realize my passion for volunteering and in particular eliminating social prejudices towards people with intellectual disabilities, it is my unified partner Tian that inspires me more than anything else.

Despite his best attempts, Tian was not included in activities with the other students in his first school and had a very hard time making friends. He told me that the other students generally pretended he didn’t exist and wouldn’t let him play with them. This deeply upset and saddened Tian who just wanted friends to play with. Due to this treatment he requested a transfer from his non-unified school to a unified one. This is where I met Tian.

For children there is no worse feeling than being purposely isolated from a group of their peers. This almost always causes a devastating lack of confidence and a surplus of timidity. Tian’s story helps illustrate that one of the most devastating things that can happen to children with intellectual disabilities is being excluded from everyday activities by their fellow classmates.

Just as important as eliminating the R-word is eliminating this lack of inclusion to those with intellectual disabilities. I spend a lot of time playing video games with Tian during and after our unified pairing and realized that we have far more in common than not. In fact he may be a little better at the video games we play than me.

I believe that the first step to eliminating the R-word is educating non-ID children on why it is so vital to include and treat their peers with ID with respect and to look for their similarities not their differences. Through education we can create a better, happier world for all who live in it.

By Tianyi Xu

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