As we near the end of 2022, meeting participants were reminded of the theme “Building Back Stronger.” This meeting was special because it was the first face-to-face meeting since the pandemic, and every participating state shared their calendar of activities for 2022 and 2023.
Special Olympics Asia Pacific Regional Office, Ms Shruti Mehta also shared about what other countries across the region were doing, and pointed out that, “The national identity of each program is important for us to build any kind of growth in this region.”
She also added that SO Malaysia is one of the more established programs with great potential. Its bottom-up model is also very unique. It demonstrates how very real grassroots activity is and her take back from her brief meeting with the SOM leadership teams, is how voluntary driven it is.
SOM President Lam concluded the meeting on the 11th December, 2022, with her hope that the Malaysia program is able to grow back stronger because of the good grassroots foundation it has at the local levels.
(L-R:) Connie, ND, Shruti from SOAP, and Henry from SO Perak.
SOM had the privilege of having Shruti Mehta fly in from SO Asia Pacific, to talk about the importance of a National Office Team. She stressed why the national program has to work closely with state programs to be able to fulfil objectives at national and state level.
