We Are Proudly
Special Olympics Indiana
Special Olympics Indiana, founded in 1969, is a nonprofit part of the global Special Olympics movement, using sport, health, education, and leadership programs to end discrimination against and empower people with intellectual disabilities.
With more than 19,000 athletes and Unified partners, supported by 10,000 coaches and volunteers, we rely entirely on donations. We use sport as a catalyst for social change, exposing inequity and highlighting the abilities of people with intellectual disabilities to break down misperceptions and negative attitudes.
unified ideals
Mission
To provide year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, offering them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.
shared dreams
Vision
Our vision is an inclusive world for all, driven by the power of sport, through which people with intellectual disabilities live active, healthy and fulfilling lives.
collective efforts
Goal
The goal of Special Olympics Indiana is for all persons with intellectual disabilities to have the chance to become useful and productive citizens who are accepted and respected in their communities.
Our People
Understanding unified sports
About Unified Sports
Unified Sports® joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team. It was inspired by a simple principle: playing together is a quick path to friendship and understanding.
Playing unified can be as easy as picking up a ball and inviting someone not quite like you to play. Or you can participate in an organized Unified Sports event.
Our opponent is intolerance. As long as we come together on the field of play, we can defeat it.
The Play Unified Campaign
Special Olympics has launched a fully integrated, multi-faceted marketing campaign targeting young people age 14 to 25 throughout the world. The Play Unified campaign will raise the profile of the Special Olympics brand among current and new advocates and supporters, and it will encourage young people to make a difference and help create more unified and just communities around the world.
This Unified Generation will come to embody the principles of our movement and in turn will shape the world into one in which respect, tolerance and equality prevail. We will inspire attitudes that lead to activity WITH our athletes, rather than an approach of doing things FOR our athletes. People with intellectual disabilities say they want to be included as equals in society. For more information, visit PLAYUNIFIED.ORG.
