Edna Šunjić

Edna Šunjić is an athlete from Special Olympics Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Europe Eurasia Region. Edna participates in swimming, skiing, and table tennis. She has been involved in Special Olympics since 2017.

Edna’s favorite parts about Special Olympics are the Global Youth Leadership Summit as well as World Games. Edna attended the Global Youth Leadership Summit in Abu Dhabi in 2019 with her friend and mentor. She was also an athlete at the World Games in Austria in 2017 and won two gold medals.

Edna is excited for the congress in Berlin. She is looking forward to meeting some people again and is excited to share experiences and journeys.

When Edna isn’t competing, she enjoys playing guitar, acting, ballet, and hanging out with her friends.

Edna says that being an athlete leader means that she has an opportunity to share her leadership story and help her peers understand what inclusion means for their community. Through athlete leadership she gets to make friends for life and that is something she truly enjoys doing.

Edna’s grant plan is to give a presentation to the Youth Club of the DS association as well as to new sport leaders and students of Third Gymnasium. The core of the grant plan is training sessions where Special Olympics athlete leaders share with students without disabilities. The presentation will introduce attendees to the core modules Introduction to Athlete Leadership and Understanding Leadership. After the presentation there will be unified sports. The objective of the project is to educate and expand the number sport leaders with the goal of each having quality leadership skills. Another objective is to increase the understanding of the leadership potential people with IDD have. Edna also hopes to improve her own skills and promote and raise awareness about healthy lifestyle to new sport leaders and students. She also plans to advocate for inclusion in local sports clubs where all students are active and play sports.