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North Carolina’s lush forests, blue skies and southern hospitality are making quite an impression on Nalin (Na-leen) Kumar of India.
“ Raleigh is a pretty city,” said Kumar. “Not as full of big buildings as I thought, very close to nature here.”
Kumar, a physiotherapist in Dehradun, a rural area approximately six hours outside of New Delhi, is employed by the Lakita Roy Foundation, which provides education and therapy for children with disabilities, family support and awareness, and advocacy in the local community. He is in the United States as one of five people selected to participate in the first Eunice Kennedy Shriver (EKS) Fellowship Program sponsored by Special Olympics Inc.
The EKS Fellowship Program was created as a professional development opportunity for individuals from developing nations to collaborate with Special Olympics on cross-sector initiatives to raise the status of people with intellectual disabilities. The five EKS Fellows are each based with a Special Olympics Host Program in the United States. Special Olympics North Carolina was chosen to be the Host Program for Kumar and will provide him with an intense learning and working experience in all aspects of the Program’s operation from April to mid-June. Kumar will visit local program spring games, assist with SONC fundraisers such as the Law Enforcement Torch Run Plane Pull, SONC Summer Games and Healthy Athletes Programs among numerous other SONC activities. He will then develop a Fellowship project to implement when he returns home.
“I look forward to seeing the FunFitness program and learning how to apply that in my home city,” said Kumar. “I also want to learn concepts in fundraising and publicity that might work back home.”
“We are very appreciative of Special Olympics Inc. for allowing North Carolina to be involved and honored that our efforts might impact the growth of the Special Olympics movement in another part of the world,” said Keith L.Fishburne, president/CEO of SONC. “And while the purpose of the fellowship program is for Nalin to learn new ideas from us to take back to Special Olympics Bharat, we feel strongly that our volunteers, athletes and staff will also learn from him so we can improve how we provide Special Olympics in North Carolina.”
Recently Kumar attended his first Games Management Team meeting and observed as volunteers met to begin preparing for the 2008 SONC Midsummer Tournament in July. He was very impressed by the volunteers.
“The teamwork here, it is like nothing I’ve ever seen before,” said Kumar. “It felt like everyone was so friendly and at home with each other. It impressed me their efforts to help a community cause.”
Over the next two months, Kumar will get more of a hands-on feel for the SONC Program. He will hopefully learn many techniques and concepts he can apply to his local Special Olympics program as well as gain many memorable experiences with the SONC volunteers, athletes and staff.
Welcome to Special Olympics North Carolina Nalin!
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