National Director
Championing the inclusion of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Kaye has been serving in the Special Olympics Movement since 2003. She started as a volunteer and was given huge tasks and leadership roles to continue the Special Olympics program in the Philippines. She set up programs in the country and she coaches Special Olympics teams in various sports. Kaye has brought delegations to Special Olympics international events and the World Games in different countries, such as Australia, China, Greece, Singapore, UAE, and the USA. Her dedication to persons with intellectual disabilities earned her a spot in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Fellowship Program by Special Olympics International and the U.S. State Department, where she underwent a 10-week extensive training at the Special Olympics headquarters in Washington D.C. and Special Olympics Washington office in Seattle. In 2012, she was also given an opportunity by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to train in Tokyo, Japan for an 8-week training for leaders in sports for people with disabilities under the Japan Sports Association for the Disabled and Japan Paralympic Association. She served as the National Director for Special Olympics Philippines from 2012-2019; then worked as a consultant for Special Olympics Asia Pacific for 20 months, before signing with the freshly set-up Special Olympics Pilipinas.
Kaye graduated from the De La Salle University, majored in AB-Psychology and pursued her career in the field of special education. In 2002, she started a sports club for persons with intellectual disabilities and held a badminton summer clinic. Shortly after, she found out about Special Olympics from a local news feature and immediately contacted the local office to invite the SO athletes to her clinic, instead, she was invited to volunteer for a local SO competition. Since that day, she never left the movement. In 2006, she co-founded a special education center in Quezon City, where she co-managed and taught for 7 years.
Outside of Special Olympics, Kaye is a special education teacher and specializes in motor skills development, movement, and exercise as forms of behavior intervention. Long before the pandemic, she conducted private playgroup sessions for children of expatriates ages 1-5; she coached for the Philippine Futsal Academy’s summer program, handling children ages 2-5; and she also conducted disability sensitivity trainings for various groups and companies.
Kaye swears by the power of sports in one’s life as she herself was a basketball and volleyball varsity player during high school; she later ventured in boxing, football, futsal and powerlifting. Her childhood fantasy was to be an Olympian, but when she found Special Olympics, she realized that helping others become an Olympian is her dream come true in a much better package.
She lives by the saying, “Life is happiest when you are needed by others and can do things for others.”
