Special Olympics Internship Enhances Perspectives of Kazakh Grad Student

When Kazakh graduate student Elmira Zhekeyeva received her Muskie fellowship to study at the University of Mississippi, she wanted not just to get her master’s in education, but to place an emphasis on special education. Her experience as a student and as an intern at the Special Olympics has given her fresh ideas and already helped her assist with relevant initiatives back in Kazakhstan.

As a fellow on the Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program (Muskie), a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State and administered by IREX, Elmira was required to partake in a summer internship. Wanting to work in a large, active community where she could get the fullest experience, she pursued a position at the Special Olympics headquarters in Washington, DC.

During her time with the Special Olympics, Elmira worked for the organizational development department. She assisted with program implementation and preparation for the Special Olympics 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games to be held in Shanghai, China. As an intern, Elmira helped provide programmatic support and assisted in the selection of volunteers who helped out at the games. The experience helped her learn to work with different kinds of people, both individually and in a team. Elmira also volunteered at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Global Sports Camp held at the Shriver’s home in Maryland. Her experiences gave her practical knowledge of how organizations like the Special Olympics operate, and how to effectively work on Camp Shriver activities.

Camp Shriver is a day camp begun in 1962 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver to promote physical activity and competition opportunities for intellectually disabled people. The camps were a foundation for the Special Olympics, first held in 1968, also founded by Shriver. Since then, the Special Olympics and Camp Shriver events have expanded globally.

The Special Olympics gave Elmira the opportunity to travel to Kazakhstan to assist with a Camp Shriver in Kostanai, a city of 223,000 people in northern Kazakhstan. Special Olympics Kazakhstan 2007 consisted of seven events: basketball, football, badminton, swimming, table tennis, and bocce. A total of 70 athletes participated.

Camp Shriver Kazakhstan also included an event titled “Sport as an Art,” held at the Palace of Youth in Kostanai. The campers gathered to talk about their favorite sports, to draw different sports, and to dance. While the campers competed, their parents attended seminars about the Special Olympics movement, Family Support Network, and the SO “Get Into It” program.

For the Kostanai event, Elmira conducted, analyzed, and translated surveys of athletes, volunteers, and the camp director. She wrote an overall summary of the event for Special Olympics. Additionally, Elmira spoke at length with teachers and parents at a workshop on ways to increase social awareness of the needs of people with disabilities.

On her experience working with the Camp Shriver in Kostanai, Elmira says “It [the camp] was such an exciting event for parents and athletes, they were thrilled….Since the field of special education/special population is not paid much attention back home, one of the best outcomes of that event was that it drew the attention of the mass media and at least showed the rest of the society that people with disabilities do exist in our country despite the fact that we do not see them anywhere.”

Although Elmira is no longer involved directly with the Special Olympics, she does keep in touch with her colleagues and hopes to continue similar work. Regarding this, she commented, “I really enjoy working with and for people with special needs and I am very passionate about it. I hope to find a career path that will give me an opportunity to bring some social change in the lives of people with disabilities.”