Nov 05 2008
Special Friends Online
In 2007 Martin Harris helped raise money for British athletes to go to the World Special Olympic Games held in Shanghai, China. He had the unique opportunity to attend and watch the athletes train and compete in this world-wide Olympic event.
Martin was struck by the sincere friendships that were forming all around him. He watched as the 60,000 people from 160 countries said farewell to one another and realized that these people had formed a strong bond and had truly become friends in this short time together.
This is when Martin realized that there was a strong need for an online community and the idea for Special Friends Online was born.
Upon his return to the UK, Martin immediately got to work in developing this safe and secure environment for those with special needs to connect with one another regardless of their abilities.
Within the first few weeks of research with the team Martin had helping him, it became apparent that there was also a need for the parents and carers to keep in touch and share information, especially for those who have babies and infants with a learning disability to meet people having similar experiences and perhaps being united with support groups and people in their own area.
Special Friends Online is a message board for people with learning disabilities to talk with one another in a safe environment through email, chat rooms and the special Smiley Talk instant message program that enables users to have a conversation online without having to type. Smiley Talk has pre-conversation options to click and you can go back and forth in conversation with this system and have a regular conversation with your online friend.
For a limited time, Special Friends Online is offering this service free of charge. So, if you have Down syndrome, mosaic Down syndrome or any type of learning disability, or if you are a parent or carer of someone with Special Needs, I highly recommend that you check them out.
You will have fun and meet lots of Special Friends Online!
After publishing this story, I received this message from Claire at Special Friends Online and wanted to share it with you all. Here is what Claire had to say…
Hi there
My name is Claire and I am the operations manager of www.specialfriendsonline.com. The reason for me writing is to thank you for the write up that you have done about special friends. I am currently in the process of spreading the word so your help is greatly appreciated.One thing we has become apparent through special friends is that many parents would like to create awareness about their child’s life and/or learning disability. There are several ways in which we can assist if this is of interest to you.
•Share your inspirational story through our parent’s story pages. (Due to the possible sensitive nature of these stories these will only be viewed by our parents, carers and volunteers.
•Maybe your child would like to become a star, members can read information about where they live, their likes and dislikes along with their hobbies.
•Add a charity to our charity page. Here we will also provide a link directly to the website.
•We are also introducing a schools/college page. Do you know of a special school or unit that would like to be added to our page? Or a school that would like to be twinned with a school in another country?
If we can be of any assistance please do let me know
I look forward to hearing from you
Kindest regards
Claire
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