KUCHING: President of Special Olympics Kuching chapter, Datin Dayang Mariani Abang Zain expressed optimism for the club to have more volunteers in the future especially with the support from state’s Welfare Department (JKM).
“We have met JKM’s director, Noriah Ahmad recently and she was supportive of our plans to recruit more volunteers among those assigned at the various Centres For Rehabilitation (PDK) in Sarawak,” she told The Borneo Post recently.
“The support from JKM will come handy because we really need a lot of volunteers to run our activities as well as for them to become coaches for our athletes,” she enthused. According to her, JKM had given the permission to Special Olympics Kuching chapter to speak to the PDKs’ volunteers during their orientation cum briefing workshop held at Merdeka Palace Hotel recently.
A total of 81 PDK volunteers including those from Limbang and Lawas attended the five-day workshop and they were briefed by Mariani on the background of Special Olympics.
The volunteers were excited when they were told on the club’s ambition of having tennis players competing in the 2015 Special Olympics Summer Games to be held in Los Angeles (LA), USA.
They were told that there is good potential for someone in their group who can actually go to the LA games and accompany the athletes competing in one of the events competed.
Mariani informed the volunteers that Sarawak athletes had started represented Malaysia in the Special Olympics since 1999 and the latest was in Pyeongchang, South Korea in February.
“It is possible for us to have players who can compete in Special Olympics tennis competition but we must have volunteer coaches first and that is why we are calling on you to join us,” she said.
“We may even become the first state in Malaysia’s history to have players competing in Special Olympics tennis and for that we need the support from you,” she said in the appeal to the PDK volunteers.
In that respect, Mariani expressed hope for them to join its “Volunteer Coaches Workshop” to be held soon and is opened to those interested in working with the special athletes.
Those interested can contact the club’s secretary, Sanfa Guel at 0168851624 or email their inquiries at [email protected].