A Paralympic Integration Area initiative is set to change the attitudes inside the Rio 2016™ Organising Committee. Aimed at getting workers committed to this universe, the Paralympic Friends Programme was launched, gathering someone from each Functional Area who will be responsible for representing the Paralympic project inside the departments. This Wednesday, the 27th, the programme’s first meeting was held, in the presence of Marcos Lima, a visually impaired journalist and former athlete.

Mariana Mello, Paralympic Integration Manager, had the idea. She is a former professional judoka, former coach of the Paralympic Women’s Judo Brazilian National Team and holds a Master’s Degree in Human Motility.

“The programme is aimed at raising awareness about the initiatives of each of the areas focused on the Paralympic project, to deepen the knowledge about Paralympic requirements, to ensure that targets are met and that these requirements are integrated into the Games planning. The Paralympic Friend acts as a multiplier, a facilitator both within and outside the Functional Area”, Mariana explained.

During this first meeting, Paralympic Friends, who registered in the programme, went through the experience of being visually impaired. Blindfolded, they had breakfast and went to their workstations following the tactile floor. Afterwards, they listened to motivational speech by Sidney Levy, Rio 2016™ Committee Chief Executive Officer, and then to a lecture by Marcos Lima, who talked about a visually impaired person’s daily routine.

Holding a degree in Journalism from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ in Portuguese), Marcos is a former five-a-side football (for the visually impaired) player, a sport he played for 16 years, and is the current Vice-President of Urece Esporte e Cultura Não Enxergamos Obstáculos, ‘Urece Sport and Culture We See No Obstacles’ in Portuguese, (http://urece.org.br/site) and the author of Histórias de Cego (Stories of a Blind in Portuguese) blog. Already his first words addressed to the Organising Committee made the public laugh. “I’m truly blind, not a fake like you”, he joked.

Marcos was born with congenital glaucoma and became totally blind when he was about 5 years old. He learned to read and write in Braille at the Instituto Benjamin Constant (institute for the education of the visually impaired in Rio de Janeiro) and then studied in a high school where he was the only visually impaired student in his classroom. Apart from the story of his life and the good and bad moments he went through, Marcos talked about the importance of sports for everyone, and especially for him.

“I did not compete in the Paralympic Games because I wasn’t good enough, but I always dreamt of witnessing a competition of this level in Brazil. It seemed like a distant dream but now it’ll come true in a bit more than three years from now. It fills us with pride. Sport taught me a lot, opened many doors, made me more mobile, introduced me to society, allowed me to visit many countries”, Marcos recalled. He, among other achievements, in 2008 became the first Brazilian blind to ski.

Mário Azevedo, from the State of Minas Gerais, is the Paralympic Friend from the Commercial Department. He took part in the action and summarised the first meeting. “The main goal is to promote the Paralympic Movement. I usually say that the Olympic Games are where heroes are made, but that the Paralympic Games are where heroes go, which is quite a different thing. Building the word ‘confidence’ is also essential. We need to pass this confidence on to the people with disabilities, to our work colleagues as well as to Brazilian society. It’s a cascading effect”, he said.

The Rio 2016™ Paralympic Games will take place on 7th-18th September, less than three weeks after the end of the Olympic Games that start on 5th August.