Inclusion of People with Disabilities in Latvia: NGO Apeirons and Paralympic Games

1. People with disabilities in Latvia

2. People with special needs are: • In the United States, special needs is a term used in clinical diagnostic and functional development to describe individuals who require assistance for disabilities that may be medical, mental, or psychological.

3. NGO Apeirons • The organization “Apeirons” is a NGO where people with and without disabilities are together. • The main goal of our organization is the fully integration of people with disabilities in the society. • Apeirons is working actively since 1994. It was founded in 1997 and in that year was officially formed and registered like a NGO. • The motivation of our organization is included in its own name itself, “Apeirons”, the infinite substance, where everything starts and the point where everything go back in an unlimited cycle. Our organization for people with disabilities and their friends is always changing, improving, developing new ideas and looking for the ideal Society’s model. 

4. The Paralympic Games • The Paralympic Games or Paralympic Games are international multi-sport races every two years. It involves athletes with physical disabilities, including athletes with movement disorders, amputated parts of the body, blindness and cerebral palsy. Paralympic games fall into the summer and winter paralympic games, and they take place immediately after the respective Olympic Games. All Paralympic Games are organized by the International Paralympic Committee. • Latvian Edgars Bergs

5. Baiba Baikovska • Zenta Mauriņa, writer