Taiwan's Deaflympics Nets Nearly 9,800 Volunteers

In Taiwan, Deaflympics is a big deal. Very big.

Lee Yu-fan, who manages the recruitment of volunteers for the Taipei Deaflympics Organizing Committee, pulled in an amazing 9,763 volunteers to help with the Summer Games. They will host visitors, provide translation and sign language help, accompany teams, and offer traffic guidance.

The Games are held every two years, switching between the Summer and Winter Games. According to an article in Taiwan News by Lillian Wu, many of the volunteers in Taiwan are students in college. Also among the volunteers are many hearing impaired people.

But it could be argued that a sizable portion of the island's population is turning out to help.

Wu writes that Taiwan's Ministry of the Interior statistics estimates that there "nearly 480,000 people in Taiwan who have registered as volunteers and engaged in a total of nearly 50 million hours of volunteer service."

According to an article in Wikipedia, the Deaflympics are the longest running multi-sport event excluding the Olympics themselves. The summer event has been held every four years since 1924, apart from a break during World War II. In 2005, the 20th Summer Games were held in Australia, and according to the Deaflympics Web site, "[m]ore than 3,200 deaf athletes and officials from 67 nations" participated.

This year's MC opening ceremony began with a drumming performance by students from the Taipei School for the Hearing Impaired, led by "the renowned hearing-impaired percussionist Evelyn Glennie," according to an article in AsiaOne News.

Photo courtesy of tylerdurden1, via Flickr