CHIÈVRES, Belgium -- The Suicide Awareness Month Resiliency Olympics at SHAPE Sept. 20 focused on resiliency-building skills that reduce suicide risk through competitions like volleyball, basketball, soccer, tug-o-war, and Pictionary.
Teams were randomly selected and chosen from installation tenants and garrison units. At each station, players were given a lesson on a skill linked to the activity.
In the competition, teams scored points not by winning the actual match, but by using the skills they had been taught earlier in the day. "The most important thing when we are playing a game like this, is to understand the overall goal, and then also be able to change a plan right in the middle of something," said U.S. Army coordinator Scott Zaehler, who traveled from Vicenza, Italy, for the event.
"We gave points based on not the score but how adaptable they were, or how the communicated," Zaehler added.
At the end of the competition, all participants gathered for a ceremony, and the three best teams received medals.
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