With more than four million athletes and Unified partners and one million coaches and volunteers in over 200 accredited Programs, Special Olympics delivers more than 30 Olympic-type sports and over 100,000 games and competitions every year.

Everyone deserves the opportunity to achieve their best possible health. Around the world, Special Olympics Health is working to make that vision a reality for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), who are too often overlooked by health systems. As of 2024, 154 Special Olympics Programs activated as Healthy Communities—implementing the P.A.T.H. to Health Equity framework to prioritize inclusive health programming related to Prevention, Assessment, Training, and Health System Strengthening. Among the accomplishments in 2024: nearly 19,000 families, caregivers, and athletes participated in Family Health Forums; 95,986 Healthy Athletes screenings were completed; and 29,176 clinicians and students engaged in virtual education to improve inclusive care delivery. These milestones reflect a strategic global effort to transform health systems, making them more inclusive, more accessible, and more responsive to the health needs of people with IDD.

In 2024, Special Olympics advanced its mission of fostering inclusive societies through two key leadership initiatives: Unified Leadership and Athlete Leadership are global initiatives that foster inclusion and leadership among individuals with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Unified Leadership education series was relaunched globally with refreshed “Warm-up” and “Kickoff” sessions at a workshop in London with the purpose of building skills and enhancing collaboration. At the same time, through Athlete Leadership, Special Olympics strengthened athletes’ decision-making, communication, and advocacy abilities through training and global collaboration. We welcomed, onboarded, and trained the new class of Sargent Shriver Global Messengers and the Global Athlete Leadership Council that will serve their terms until 2027.

Building on global momentum for inclusive education in 2024, Special Olympics expanded its impact through youth leadership, school-based inclusion, and research innovation. Unified Champion Schools grew through six regional Hubs of Excellence, enhancing collaboration and training to strengthen inclusion in schools. Inclusive Youth Leadership programs inspired young people with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities to lead meaningful change through the Global Youth Leadership Council, the Unified Youth Exchange, and the Youth Innovation Grant Initiative. The Global Center for Inclusion in Education advanced research exploring the role of AI in inclusive learning and the future of accessible education. These initiatives are helping shape a global movement where inclusion and leadership thrive in every learning environment.

The IV Latin American Special Olympics Games Asunción 2024 gathered over a 1,000 athletes from 23 countries (19 from the Latin American region and 4 guest countries) and over 2,000 volunteers for 9 days of sports competitions and parallel events meant to raise awareness about the need for a more inclusive world and empower members of our Movement to become the leaders we need to achieve that goal.