Autistic children challenged to ping pong match

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ The Autism Association of Mongolia (AAM) in cooperation with Hogan Lovells (Mongolia) and Shine Od (“New Star”) Complex organized the second ping pong tournament among children with disabilities last week. The first-ever tournament was organized in 2016 in the name of Sport for Tomorrow, an organization led by the Japanese government for promoting sports. Such tournaments are organized in many countries around the world on yearly basis in anticipation of the World Ping Pong Day. Gifts to the participating children, lunch sets and other costs were covered by Hogan Lovells (Mongolia). Participants included over 80 children from the 4th special needs school, 130th school of Khan-Uul, the Mongolian Down Syndrome Association, the Association of Parents with Disabled Children. The sports tournament is being made an annual event to be carried out in honor of the World Autism Awareness Day, observed on April 2. Although there are no sufficient statistics on autism in Mongolia, the Autism Association of Mongolia have about 200 autistic members registered. According to a global data, 1 percent of human population has autism. Based on this assumption, there might be 10 times greater number of autistic people in Mongolia than the AAM has discovered.