get. They really don't want to be treated differently, and when they do something well they want to be praised.'' And if the new national director of the Special Olympics -- whose words these are -- has anything to do with it, Bermuda's mentally challenged athletes will achieve their aims sooner rather than later.

No stranger to the needs of the mentally challenged -- she was a member of the Mentally Handicapped Association, helped found Hope Homes, and has a Down's Syndrome relative who is a Special Olympian -- Mrs. Cecilia Bernard-Lambert feels that taking over the administrative reins of Special Olympics is a natural progression of her interest in this field.

"Through my brother-in-law, I have supported the Special Olympics from the sidelines in a sense, and now I have taken on this job because I like to take one good cause and work with it,'' she explained.

As with all new leaders, Mrs. Bernard-Lambert is full of enthusiasm for the task ahead, and has plans to improve and expand the activities of the Special Olympians.

"Whereas now we take a particular sport and do it for a few months and then move on, I envision that we will have more sports programmes on a continuous, year-round basis,'' she said. "What I want to do is develop each athlete's interest in a particular sport and work with that so that when we go to the Special Olympics abroad they are really in tune with what they are doing. We want to make them specialists in the sport of their interest.'' Mrs. Bernard-Lambert would also like to see more mentally challenged people become involved in the Special Olympics movement.

"We need more younger athletes,'' she said. "At present, our youngest is 14, the next youngest is 23, and another is in her 60s, but the organisation is open to participants from age eight upwards.'' Allied to this is the national director's desire to work more closely with the Department of Education in establishing a compatible sports programme for its mentally challenged students.

"While they do have physical activities, we have a regimented way of doing things, and if the Department and ourselves could work together we would then have a larger nucleus of participants in the Special Olympics because we would both be doing the same thing,'' Mrs. Bernard-Lambert explained.

Ultimately, the national director wants to see what she calls unified sports events, whereby teams containing a mixture of mentally challenged and regular athletes would take part together in competitive sports.

"Unified sports would develop a camaraderie and show people that the mentally challenged are just like anyone else,'' she said.

Greater involvement between coaches from the Island's regular sports associations and Special Olympics is yet another goal Mrs. Bernard-Lambert has in her sights.

"We are also a sporting group,'' she said. "What better coaches can you have than those who are actually in a specific sport to train our Special Olympics athletes?'' The national director was at pains to dispel the public perception that all mentally challenged people were hopelessly retarded and incapable of doing anything.

"We have very high level functioning as well as low functioning athletes because our organisation welcomes everyone,'' she assured.

Mrs. Bernard-Lambert is appealing for more volunteers to come forward and work with the athletes at the regular Saturday games, which take place at Warwick Secondary School field from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.

"They don't have to be great at a particular sport. Sometimes we need more volunteers to work one on one with an athlete and give them a little bit more encouragement,'' she explained.

Anyone wishing to help should contact Mrs. Bernard-Lambert at 292-2369 or 234-1894.

Special Olympics is an international programme of year-round sports training and competition for children and adults with mental retardation. It began in 1968 when Eunice Kennedy Shriver organised the first International Special Olympics Games in Chicago, Illinois. Mrs. Shriver saw that people with mental retardation were far more capable in sports and physical activities than many experts thought.

Today, there are accredited Special Olympics programmes in approximately 120 countries around the world, including Bermuda.

This year, Special Olympics International is marking its 25th anniversary with a special celebration in Disney World, Florida, and Bermuda plans to send a group.

"It is going to be very exciting,'' Mrs. Bernard-Lambert promised. "We are putting together a group who wish to go, and we are planning to hold some fund-raisers to help defray the costs of the trip.'' The national director is also excited about a new fund-raiser being innovated by the United States Naval Air Station. The USNAS will host a basketball game at the Base gymnasium, when a team of their officers will challenge a Bermuda team to include local dignitaries and Canadian Forces personnel. All proceeds will go to the Special Olympics.

Other events planned prior to the organisation's annual May Games include an athletes' church service and luncheon on May 9 and the annual Torch Run on May 15, when pledged runners from the Bermuda Police, Fire Service, US and Canadian bases participate in the biggest fund-raiser of the year.

Revenue raised for Special Olympics helps to send mentally challenged athletes to the International Olympics once every five years, and also to meets in the Caribbean.

SPECIAL OLYMPICS new national director, Mrs. Cecilia Bernard-Lambert, aims to improve the lot of Bermuda's mentally challenged athletes.

SPECIAL DAY -- Miss Berneice Godwin and Mr. Craig Dickens, surrounded by other Special Olympics participants, hold the torch to light the Olympic flame which marks the start of last year's Games.