A total of three REWE Group teams are supporting the Special Olympics as corporate volunteers for three days each. The organisation team consisting of Franziska Halstrick, Charlotte Ehl and Antonia Pott, who coordinate the volunteers' work, is on site the entire time. Franziska Halstrick took stock with one.

one: Franziska, you from the organisation team said goodbye to the second group of REWE Group volunteers yesterday and the third group is already in action. You're coordinating the shifts, for example, but that's not all? Franziska Halstrick: No, we started organising months before the Special Olympics. Now here in Berlin, we are the point of contact for everyone, because all 100 colleagues are different and have different concerns. And we organise get-togethers for the evenings, for example, going to the Brandenburg Gate yesterday with those who wanted to. Another time, many of us went to the beer garden together. Of course, we are primarily here to support the Special Olympics. But it's also a great opportunity for us and our colleagues to get to know each other. During the assignments or at the latest in the evening, when everyone gradually arrives at the hotel's rooftop bar as the sun goes down, employees who otherwise have few or no interfaces get to talk to each other.

one: Two thirds of your time at the Special Olympics are over. How would you and your organisation team sum up the interim results?
Franziska Halstrick : All the hard work in the run-up to the Games was absolutely worth it. The feedback from the first and now also the second volunteer group was very positive. I can say that we have definitely achieved our corporate goal of strengthening social commitment. The first group, who were on assignment until Tuesday, said when they left that they would definitely tell their teams and colleagues about these days and sensitise their departments to the topic of inclusion. So for us as an employer, it was a worthwhile endeavour in many respects.

one: Will it continue?
Franziska Halstrick: We from the organising team will definitely take away some lessons learned. And even if it is still too early to think specifically about how, when and where, one thing is certain: we will continue with some form of corporate volunteering.

The volunteers, who are taking over as the second team for handball today, are also under a bit of stress, as the S-Bahn is not running as planned. In the end, however, they all arrive safely and are assigned to their teams. Scott goes into raptures: "You immediately get goose bumps. It's a unique atmosphere here that everyone should experience at least once."

The new early shift team is full of vigour at the start
Most of the new volunteers are assigned to the handball teams again. I'm given a kind of special assignment, which is rather unspectacular from the outside - I sit behind a row of young people recording statistics on tablets and make sure they have some distance from the cheering spectators. However, it is quickly explained to me that these unified observers play an important role: This is because they are responsible for ensuring that all team members are equally involved in teams where athlete:s with and without disabilities play together. In addition, the number of athletes with and without disabilities on the pitch is clearly specified. The unified observers ensure that this ratio always remains the same, even in the event of substitutions or time penalties. If a team does not adhere to these rules, the unified observers will penalise this team. It can be annoying when spectators right behind them sing "Sweet Caroline" at the top of their voices and cheer on the athletes.

For Anna Elena Köntgen, Anja Meeh, André Günther, Kathrin Burchert, Sabine Breideneichen and Andrea Zwirnlein (from left to right), their volunteer commitment comes to an end today. After three days of supporting the handball teams, the time for the first of REWE Group's three volunteer teams at the Special Olympics has come to an end. They will hand over the baton to the next REWE Group team, which will start helping tomorrow.

one: What was your personal highlight during these three days?
Anja Meeh : My highlight was the way the people here interacted with each other, the athletes with each other and the volunteers with the athletes. I thought it was great how nice and caring everyone was.

André Günther: The consideration that everyone showed each other was impressive. The Special Olympics teams looked at the level of play of the other teams. And accordingly, they didn't throw the balls so hard, for example.

Anna Elena Köntgen: The openness of all the cultures here was a highlight for me.

Kathrin Burchert: I found this pure joy of the athletes so great..

Andrea Zwirnlein: ... and how they were with each other. If something happened, an own goal for example, they hugged and comforted the person it happened to. In the middle of the game.

Sabine Breideneichen: And that's how they treated us volunteers too. I once passed a ball back to the Danish women's team from out of bounds. And the Danes celebrated this rather long throw. And I thought it was great how the referee took a time-out to retie a player's loose shoelace.

one: Would you recommend such corporate volunteering or do it again yourself?
Anna Elena Köntgen: I would definitely do it again.

Andrea Zwirnlein: Again immediately. I would certainly take a completely different approach the second time round with my current experience. I would know more quickly where I can and may provide support.

one: What was it like within the REWE Group team?
Kathrin Burchert: I thought it was great to get to know colleagues from so many different corners of Germany..

André Günther:... from stores, head offices and logistics..

Anna Elena Köntgen: And in the evening, most of them went out for dinner together and just wanted to do something together.

Then comes the shock for the team from the Ivory Coast: a player has twisted her ankle and has to be taken to hospital with a limp. Bettina and Antje, who both speak very good French, quickly split up: One goes to the hospital with the injured player and the first aider. The other spontaneously takes over looking after the team.

Great warmth. Steffi Kusch talks about her experiences: "I'm responsible for the Saudi Arabian athletes during my volunteering programme. This team is made up entirely of young women with Down's syndrome. On the first day, I fetched them their lunch as they had a game at mealtime. When they had finished eating, one of the girls came up to me from behind, put her arms around me, gave me a peck on the cheek, then beamed at me and left again. This warmth did me so much good."

The classifications in the first few days are not about who goes through to the next round. No team will be eliminated here. Instead, the games are used to divide up the groups so that teams of roughly equal strength play against each other in the next round. This is because the spirit of the Special Olympics is inclusive and not competition-orientated.

Berlin, 17 June.The arrival. The main station is overflowing with people: Travel and Tourism, locals, DB service staff. As the first harbinger of the Special Olympics, a boy takes two steps at a time, wearing a red jersey with the English word "Kenya" and the emblem of the world's largest sports movement for people with intellectual disabilities and multiple disabilities.

In front of the station, an attendant endeavours to board a bus with two athletes. One athlete in a wheelchair, the other visibly struggling to keep his balance. Even though the step on the bus is very low, it is there. The three of them look like a well-rehearsed team, the companion lifts the wheelchair backwards, the team-mate helps at the front. They are still on the bus when the driver gets up to help. I often think about these three in the evening, at the big opening ceremony, at the parade of over 6,000 athletes from 190 countries into the Olympic stadium. They got on and off aeroplanes or trains from all over the world, some with wheelchairs or walking frames. How many literal barriers they had to overcome to finally celebrate inclusion at a gigantic opening show in Berlin's Olympic Stadium. Or - as Special Olympics ambassador Emmanuele Dutra de Fernandez Souza put it: she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life talking about inclusion, she simply wants to live it: "We want the same opportunities, the same respect."

As the opening evening draws closer, purple is increasingly blending into the colourful summer streetscape of Berlin. It is the colour of the T-shirts for the volunteers, who, like the athletes, come from almost every corner of the world. The 100 REWE Group volunteers, who are divided into three groups and support the athletes for three days each, come from all corners of Germany.

Whether they are businesswomen or drivers, service department heads or IT business analysts, category managers or regional representatives for the severely disabled, project managers or store managers: everyone is happy to be there, everyone quickly gets talking across the "borders" of regions, areas and activities, but no one has the idea of being on first-name terms or even asking if they can be on first-name terms. The majority make their way to the opening ceremony together.

The opening ceremony of the Special Olympics. Fun with the Schuhplattler troupe, fireworks to the Blue Man Group, dancing along in the stands to Madcom's "Are you ready", ceremonial speeches from dignitaries and athletes: The opening of the Special Olympics was in no way inferior to any other Olympic Games kick-off. The fact that it was perhaps a little more colourful was not so much due to the purple, pink and petrol décor and play of colours, but mainly due to the athletes. In elaborate national costumes, in simple tracksuits or as pharaohs (Egypt), disciplined (China), dancing (Cuba) or waving wildly (almost everyone), whether in fours (Aruba, Burundi) to forty (Monaco and Gibraltar, surprisingly) or as a stadium-filling troop like host nation Germany: each delegation had something very unique and that made the perfect event a little more approachable. This was achieved not least by the relay runner with the Olympic flame, who - instead of handing it over to the next runners - ran into the centre of the stadium to light the Olympic flame without any detours. Holding the flame high in front of her with both hands, she was both energised and exhausted. She was led back, but this little moment - amidst the perfect choreography - was the secret highlight of the opening of the 16th Special Olympics International Summer Games.

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"Sport has the power to change the world." This is what Sven Albrecht, Managing Director of Special Olympics Germany, says in the podcast Sports Maniac. Since Saturday, 7,000 athletes, 190 delegations and thousands of volunteers have been proving that sport can be more than just a money-making machine.

The REWE Group is on site with 100 corporate volunteers. REWE is supporting the event as a premium partner with food and a large picnic, among other things. In order to organise the largest multi-sport event in Germany since the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, support is needed - also from the media: eleven TV stations have joined forces to form a media alliance and will report on the competitions.

The aim is for the event to develop an appeal far beyond Berlin. After all, the World Games are of course a highlight of the work of the Special Olympics Germany organisation. The organisers hope that the event will draw attention to their actual work: To promote participation and integration for people with intellectual or multiple disabilities everywhere in society, so that it becomes natural in everyday life to take their needs into account. Sport can play an important role in this endeavour, which has so far only been used to a limited extent in Germany. According to Special Olympics Germany, only eight per cent of people with intellectual disabilities had access to sport before coronavirus - the World Games are intended to help open up this opportunity to the remaining 92 per cent.