Saúl, 21, and Katherine, 21, are Youth Leaders from El Salvador. Saúl has been a Unified partner for 2 years, he wants to be an example of advocacy for his friends and his fellow young people. Katherine is a Special Olympics athlete and has been competing almost all her life, she is motivated by the mission of Special Olympics and decided to become a Youth Leader because she enjoys being responsible and collaborating with all kinds of people to better her community.
Saúl and Katherine have seen that access to artistic education is often expensive and unequal in their community. They want to address this issue by creating relationships between local dance schools and Special Olympics El Salvador to create inclusive spaces for people with intellectual disabilities to express themselves through dance and interact with people without intellectual disabilities.
Throughout the 9 months of their project, Saúl and Katherine plan to organize 4 activities to achieve their goal, they will advocate for inclusion in-person at dance schools, run awareness trainings for dance instructors and dancers, organize Unified Trials to put into practice what the dancers learned at the trainings, and a final Unified Dance event to present the results of the project.
Saúl and Katherine hope that their project will use dance as a tool for inclusion, give people with ID access to the world of art, and create a community of Unified Dancers!