“It’s about ability”-campaign promotes sports for all children

On July 22, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon visited Montenegro. His wife, Mrs. Ban Soon-teak, joined young Paralympic athletes Marijana Goranovic and Ilija Tadic, UNICEF Montenegro Representative Benjamin Perks and other prominent politicians in launching the new “It’s About Ability’’ campaign TV commercial.

Since the beginning in September 2010, the campaign, ‘Govorimo o mogućnostima’ or ‘It’s About Ability’, shines a light on what young people with disability can do if given a chance to engage in sports. It shows two prominent Montenegrin athletes with disability Marijana Goranovic and Ilija Tadic.

“On the one hand, there is a need to build systems to realize the rights of children with disability – systems for detection and assessment of disability, for inclusive education and social work interventions to support families of children with disability. But also, there needs to be a parallel effort to address the stigma and prejudice against children with disability  and the aim of this campaign is to really show the positive face of children with disabilities and to bring them out into the open,” UNICEF Montenegro Representative Benjamin Perks explained.

Disability must never prevent children from fully participating in play and sports. And every child has right to participate in sports on an equal basis with others – it was concluded at the launching of the new TV commercial of the ongoing It’s about ability campaign, which has so far positively changed the behaviour of 23% of Montenegro’s citizens towards children with disability according to the evaluation survey conducted in November 2011.

Check out here the publication of the “It’s about Ability” campaign!