Special Olympics Turkey

The Special Olympics effort in Turkey started at The Turkey Spastic Children Association with an agreement signed between Hifzi Ozcan, MD, PhD and The Kennedy Foundation in 1982. Special Olympics, which was recognized and supported by The General Directorate of Youth and Sports, Ministry of National Education and The Turkish Olympic Committee, was also adopted as the official program of Sports Federation for the Intellectually Disabled. Activities such as educational seminars, regional competitions, national games and participating in the International Games were incorporated in the Federation’s program.

The Program, which operated with Turkey Spastic Children’s Foundation’s support within the Turkey Spastic Children Association since its inception had reached 45 Cities and the number of Athletes had reached 5000 by the year 2003.

As a consequence of this growth, it gained an autonomous status with Association for the Sports, Education and Rehabilitation for Special Athletes (Özel Sporcular Spor Eğitim ve Rehabilitasyon Derneği - ÖSSED) established under Dilek Sabanci’s presidency along with Sakip Sabanci and Hifzi Ozcan, MD, PhD’s honorary membership on November 26 2002.
Special Olympics gains success and grows with the support of the Government, Public Organizations, Non profit Organizations, Volunteers and The Private Sector in Turkey as well as in the rest of the world. Special Olympics Turkey aims to reach more persons with intellectual disabilities in more sports categories in larger geographical areas.

According to these goals, Special Olympics organizes applied instructional seminars for the trainers who will train the athletes, applied seminars and conferences to people who will initiate and apply the program in their regions; it supports regional programs in organizing local Sports competitions compatible with Special Olympics rules by granting them authority.