Eden is a 17-year-old Youth Leader from Bermuda, a student at Cedar Bridge Academy and a Special Olympics athlete. Eden competed in the Special Olympics Summer World Games held in Abu Dhabi in 2019, claiming the silver medal in Level CS English Working Trials. Eden will be representing Bermuda at the 2022 USA Summer Games in Orlando, Florida (Equestrian).
She decided to become a Youth Leader to develop her leadership and public speaking skills. She was inspired to share her own experience of Special Olympics with her community. Eden believes that there is a need for more social events and interaction between young people with and without intellectual disabilities to promote awareness and inclusion in her community.
Eden plans to organize a Games Night event where each Special Olympics Bermuda athlete will invite one notable inspirational person from the community without intellectual disabilities to play games together in teams of 2, have food and music and connect on shared experiences instead of differences. Over the course of 6 months, Eden plans to engage over 50 Special Olympics athletes and people without intellectual disabilities in these game nights.
At the end of this project Eden hopes that attendees without intellectual disabilities will better understand the issues people with ID face, see that they are fun and intelligent and want to mingle with people with ID more often, as well as encourage others to do so too.