This Day, That Year: March 27

Editor's note: This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China.

On March 27, 1987, the first national Special Olympic Games was launched in Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Since then, six such Games have been held across the country.

In 2007, Shanghai held the Special Olympics World Summer Games, becoming the first city in Asia to host the event for intellectually challenged athletes as seen in the item on Oct 12, 2007, from China Daily.

More than 7,500 athletes from home and abroad participated.

The Special Olympics is dedicated to empowering intellectually challenged individuals to become physically fit, productive and respected members of society through sports and competition.

A team of 110 athletes represented China in 10 sports at the just-closed Special Olympics World Summer Games in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates.

The country has 1.5 million such athletes registered, while the number was 50,000 in 2000.

Since then, a series of events have helped boost the development of sports for this sector in China.

In 2005, the Shanghai government started a program called Sunshine Homes which aims to take care of physically and intellectually challenged people.

In Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, coffee shops with physically challenged employees were launched to prepare young people to play a greater role in the workplace.

In the past five years, 1 million people in China with these challenges have been absorbed into the labor market.

The intellectually challenged population in the country is estimated at more than 5 million and the physically challenged population at 85 million, official data showed.