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Coaches training held for upcoming Special Olympics events

A training class was held this past Monday for coaches and board members of Special Olympics American Samoa at the Veterans Memorial Stadium VIP room in preparation for upcoming Special Olympic events that will be held here locally and abroad.

 

“Today’s event was basically to provide ‘coach training’ for coaches and board members, on how to be a coach for special Olympic athletes,” said the Board Chairman for Special Olympics American Samoa, Tafa Tua-Tupuola.

 

 “The main thing what we are trying to accomplish right now is to get the training out and get them prepared for the local March 18 Special Olympics event we will be having. We want to try and have enough trained coaches out there volunteering their time to work with these Special Olympic athletes,” she said.

 

She stated that March 18 will be a preliminary day where they will be calling out all of the local Special Olympic athletes, and after that day, according to Tua-Tupuola, they will be doing a little bit of ‘Self Advocacy’ with the athletes being assigned to coaches for certain sports events.

 

“The coaches that these athletes will be assigned to will set up a training day for them to get trained and prepare them for the Asia Pacific Regional Games that will be taking place in Newcastle, Australia at the end of November of this year,” she said. On hand for the training was Tusitina Nu’uvale who is the National Director of Special Olympics Samoa to teach the Code of Conduct for board members and coaches.

 

According to Special Olympics website, www.specialolympicsasiapacgames2013.com,  in speaking about the Asia Pacific Regional Games to be held from November 30 to December 7 in the city of Newcastle, Australia, this will be the inaugural Special Olympics Asia Pacific Regional Games and will be the largest multi country event ever held for people with an intellectual disability in Australia.

 

The website also states that there will more than 5,000 international and interstate visitors, over 2,000 Special Olympic athletes, over 4,000 volunteers and approximately 200,000 spectators from 30 invited countries in the Asia Pacific Region that will converge on the City of Newcastle to compete in the first ever Special Olympics Asia Pacific Regional Games.

 

Thirty countries from the Asia Pacific Region have been invited with American Samoa being one of those countries. The rest of the 29 are, Australia (host country), Bangladesh, New Zealand, Philippines, China, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Bhutan, Japan, Brunei, Singapore, Laos, Thailand, Maldives, Malaysia, Nepal, Korea, Cambodia, Timor Leste, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Samoa, Pakistan, Tonga, Myanmar, Tongo, Hong Kong and Taipei.