Special Olympics (SO) is an international sports organization that provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of sports for people with intellectual disabilities.
The mission of SO is to give athletes continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy, and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills, and friendship with their families, other athletes, and the community.
Toyota shares the same values of SO. We signed agreements to become a National Partner of Special Olympics Nippon in January 2016 and a Global Partner of Special Olympics International in January 2018 to provide support globally.
In Japan, our employees are actively involved in volunteering and providing support at domestic competitions and local events.
Toyota aims to realize an inclusive society open to all people with and without disabilities.
The Special Olympics symbol shows the transformation of a person through sport.
It is a form that signifies diverse talents and abilities coming together to create one inclusive world.
Toyota shares the spirit of Unified Sports® The quickest path to deepening mutual understanding
Toyota believes that sports have the power to build a world where people with diverse characteristics can participate, compete toward the same goal, and respect each other.
Unified Sports® is realizing this world.
What's Unified Sports®？
Unified Sports® is an original Special Olympics initiative that joins people with intellectual disabilities (athletes) and people without intellectual disabilities (partners) as teammates to play sports together.
It is being promoted by Special Olympics International and expanded around the world. It is held as an official event at international tournaments.
Toyota aims to realize an inclusive society open to all people through the power of sports.
Message
Toward achieving a world without differences open to all people
Timothy ShriverChairman, Special Olympics International
Mr. Shriver is a graduate of Yale University and holds a PhD in education from the University of Connecticut. He has undertaken various forms of research and activities as an educationist and has served as the chairman of the International Board of Directors of the Special Olympics since 1996. He is also involved in filmmaking.
I believe that exchanges through sports in which all people are treated as equals—whether they have intellectual disabilities or not—and the joy felt in competing together are more important than winning or losing.
And more people mutually understanding each other’s differences and accepting one another will bring us all greater joy and allow us to create a completely new world.
Special Olympics athletes, in each of their disciplines, all want to become better. Toyota’s high quality, efforts to continuously improve, and challenges for innovation that have supported its growth complement the important elements that we want to deliver to the world through sports.
We will never cease to wish for achieving a world without differences open to all people.
Welcoming Toyota as a Global Partner, I am thrilled to the heart that we will be able to take up the challenge of achieving this vision together.
I am sure that the more than 5 million Special Olympics athletes throughout the world share this same desire.
Nothing is impossible. By uniting our strengths, I believe that we are building a fair and fun future.
An invitation to become a team that has no lines of division
President (As of Nov. 2017 at the time of signing the Special Olympics Global Partner Agreement)Akio Toyoda
My heart is filled with deep appreciation for the Special Olympics’ having accepted Toyota as a Global Partner.
When I was a university student, I encountered field hockey. After that, it seems that field hockey was all I did day in and day out. Having been born with the name “Toyoda”, I was often viewed with bias. I had always wanted others to see the real me. But it was only when playing sports that people would look at me as “Akio Toyoda, the human being”. People treated me like just another guy on the team. Sports, in which people of various characters compete for the same goal, have the power to build a society in which people have respect for each other. Encountering sports became a catalyst for me to change my own way of living and thinking, and I feel that it has now even changed how I relate to others.
As Chairman Shriver has said, the Special Olympics is an invitation to all people. I believe that Toyota has been granted an invitation to become a team in which there are no lines of division, where everyone’s differences are seen as individuality and where there is mutual respect.
I want to achieve a world that is open to all people and that has no lines of division. If each of us sincerely and with real intention thinks so, I am confident that we can come closer to a world in which all people can experience the joy of freedom of movement, in other words—mobility for all.
