Sport and the physically and mentally handicapped

Extract

Some time ago, the International Review published an article describing the movement of solidarity which swept the Junior Section of the Japanese Red Cross when hundreds of disabled arrived in Tokyo, in 1964, for the International Games which had been organized for them. The competitions, which were launched more than twenty years ago, are spreading to an ever larger number of countries, and as they now cover a wide range of sports, they are in principle held in the context of the International Olympic Games. What a fine example of endurance and fortitude we are set by men and women who, although struck by bodily ills, do not submit but find fulfilment in some form of sport!

The Junior Red Cross of Japan played an outstanding part in ensuring the success of the Games, and we published at the time a report by Mrs. Sachiko Hashimoto, Director of the Japanese Juniro Red Cross, on Red Cross activities during the Games and, in particular, on the interpretation service which she organized and which in so many cases proved extremely effective. Not only did young Red Cross volunteers help disabled competitors communicate with one another by means of a language they had learnt for that special puropse, but by rendering all manner of small services they eased the life of persons who could get about only in a wheelchair.