Learning Disability Bulletin

Morgen Anderson and Matthew Logue have been friends for a couple of years. They usually stay in the house to watch films and chat. It’s exactly the sort of friendship most young men have – except that Matthew has a learning disability.

Affected by Down’s Syndrome and with autistic symptoms, Matthew has suffered ongoing health problems, as well as being shy and rarely going out. But since he linked up with Anderson, a 22-year-old final year philosophy student, he has become more outgoing and likes having someone who comes to visit him.

Their friendship has been made possible by Best Buddies, a project run by Scottish charity Enable Scotland, which is part of a global network founded by the Kennedy family.Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died this week aged 88, left a legacy that transcends time and geography. Her influence as a Kennedy, a professional and, most importantly, a sister has changed the way the world views people with learning disabilities.

She is famous for being the sister of JFK and Robert Kennedy, mother of Maria Shriver and mother-in-law of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but it is her relationship with sister Rosemary that she will be remembered for. Rosemary was born in a different time. She had a lobotomy at the age of 23 and spent the next six decades in an institution. Thankfully, most people with learning disabilities, like Logue, no longer experience that life. Eunice Kennedy Shriver can claim some of the credit for that.

Norman Dunning, chief executive of ENABLE Scotland, says: “Shriver saw that people with learning disabilities could achieve much more than society expected. When she set up the Special Olympics in 1968, it was about more than sport. It was proof that people with learning disabilities can understand rules, can work towards a goal – that they have something to contribute.”

Two decades after founding the games, Shriver took her seat on the board of Best Buddies, which was the brainchild of her son Anthony. The charity supports people with learning disabilities to make friends, get jobs and be included and now has 1400 projects worldwide.

Anderson, who met Logue through the ENABLE Scotland Best Buddies project, says: “In a very formal sense it involves developing a friendship with a person with a learning disability.

“But it means a lot more than that. I have gained an insight into the lives of people with learning disabilities – and the difference that friendship makes.”

Anderson got involved with the ENABLE Scotland scheme partly because his own sister has learning difficulties. He is now employed part-time as the social co-ordinator at the Glasgow branch of ENABLE Scotland. The two young men have since developed a very natural friendship.

It is this aspiration to the ordinary that characterises the learning disability lobby and Shriver’s vision.

Her son, Anthony, pays tribute to this vision on the Best Buddies website:

“With my mother’s passing, the Best Buddies programme has lost one of its most magnanimous supporters and advocates.

“Yet, I am comforted that her indelible spirit will always be with us, guiding us in our efforts to complete her vision for persons with intellectual disabilities … for she knew that her fight for equality was far from completed.”