Ateneo Special Education Society (SPEED) is a Sector-based Cluster Organization of the Ateneo de Manila University. We aim to provide an inclusive society for persons with disabilities (PWDs), as well as embrace their value as human beings. To do so, SPEED collaborates with various institutions to create projects that promote the advocacy inside and outside the Ateneo community, while holistically forming our members and raising awareness in the Loyola Schools community. Since then, we have garnered many accomplishments, such as, Organization of the Year in 2011, 2018, and 2021.
We were conceptualized by a group of freshmen back in 1993 who participated in a Leadership Program created by the Office of Student Activities. Our first partner area was The Child’s World, whose partnership was made possible by Jay Tan, who was one of its students and who eventually became SPEED’s first president. The organization began serving through area visits officially in 1994, and became an accredited organization in Ateneo with its first constitution and set of officers by 1996.
The organization envisions an inclusive Philippines that embraces the value of persons with disabilities (PWD) as human beings through providing them with equitable means to live a quality life.
As an organization that is geared towards building an inclusive society, we empower the PWD sector by holistically forming our members as advocates and responding to the needs of our stakeholders according to their current context.
The four colors of SPEED are symbolic of our core values and our vision-mission of an inclusive society. Red denotes the love we have for PWDs, the love they show to us, and the love we desire for people to show them. Orange symbolizes the acceptance of PWDs as valuable members of our society. Yellow represents the happiness we want to bring to the PWDs as they discover their own abilities and capabilities. Green signifies the personal growth that we experience as we learn more about PWDs, the sector, and the advocacy.
Ten Accomplished Youth Organization, National Finalist, 2007
COA Project of the Year (Sparkle), 2009
COA Awards Executive Board of the Year, 2011
COA Awards Organization of the Year, 2011
Ten Accomplished Youth Organization Finalist, 2011
Project of the Year (SPEED Week), 2016
External Collaborative Effort of the Year (A Special Cafe), 2018
Project of the Year (A Special Cafe), 2018
Nation Building Project of the Year (Aspire), 2018
COA Awards Organization of the Year, 2018
COA Awards Organization of the Year, 2021
COA Awards Social Development Effort of the Year (Spectrum), 2022