A new website designed to promote the \u201cSpecial 21\u201d project, which aims to make Down\u2019s syndrome swimmers eligible to participate in the Paralympic Games, was launched on Thursday, December 12 at the Conrad Algarve in Quinta do Lago.<\/p>\n
The event was attended by teachers, founders of the project, representatives from local entities and clubs and several children with special needs.<\/p>\n
The website was created by Faro-based company Dengun and provides information on the project, its history and its three founders Ant\u00f3nio Cola\u00e7o, S\u00f3nia Dem\u00e9trio and Cyril Griffith.<\/p>\n
Cola\u00e7o, president of Futebol Clube Ferreiras (Albufeira), was the first to speak to the crowd and thanked Dengun \u201cfor its magnificent work\u201d as well as everyone else who is involved in the project.<\/p>\n
He also thanked Albufeira Council, which has supported the project financially and logistically, and Conrad Algarve for hosting \u201cthis magnificent event\u201d and being an \u201cactive part of the project\u201d.<\/p>\n
Albufeira Mayor Jos\u00e9 Carlos Rolo pledged that it is the council\u2019s goal to support all sports in the municipality, especially disabled sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are committed to creating conditions so that people with special needs can live their lives to the fullest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also highlighted the growth of adapted swimming in Albufeira, saying that \u201cour pools are starting to become too small for all this success\u201d and suggested that the council might invest in new pools if the interest continues to grow.<\/p>\n
Cyril Griffith, a British expat who is captain of the Laranjal Golf Club and one of the project\u2019s founders, provided some insight into the \u201cdiscriminatory\u201d rules that dictate who can participate in the Paralympics.<\/p>\n
She gave the example of the 2012 Paralympics which received \u201cample media attention due to Ellie Simmonds, a swimmer born with achondroplasia (dwarfism), who was allowed to compete while a group of Down\u2019s syndrome swimmers could not due to these bureaucratic rules\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another of the founders, S\u00f3nia Dem\u00e9trio, promises to keep fighting for equality for Down\u2019s syndrome swimmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not quit. Until then, we will continue to believe in these children, in their successes and daily achievements.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new website designed to promote the \u201cSpecial 21\u201d project, which aims to make Down\u2019s syndrome swimmers eligible to participate in the Paralympic Games, was launched on Thursday, December 12 at the Conrad Algarve in Quinta do Lago. The event was attended by teachers, founders of the project, representatives from local entities and clubs and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14838,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14867,"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14866\/revisions\/14867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/special21.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}