Finding the Upsides of 2021 By Sarah Paterson-Hamlin, UpsideDowns Education Trust
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The best year of the century for the Down syndrome community has come to an end. Despite the challenges of COVID-19 (and an all-Tāmaki Makaurau workforce!), UpsideDowns has still had a fantastic 2021, taking on no fewer than 90 new families! We are thrilled to now be providing speech and language therapy funding for 288 children with Down syndrome spread across every region of the country. We estimate this to be around one third of the total number of whānau who need our services, so keep spreading the word! We were planning all kinds of things for this auspicious year – a gala dinner, collaboration with Attitude, and lots of fundraising events for our members and supporters to get involved with across the motu, but of course, COVID had other plans for us all. We did embrace the times however, and held our first-ever virtual fundraiser.
Over 100 runners, walkers, and prampassengers collectively travelled from our HQ in Mt Albert, Auckland, up to Cape Reinga, down to Rakiura (Stewart Island), and back again. Along the way we had virtual greetings from members, celebrities, and friends. It was a lovely upside to lockdowns, and a new way to celebrate our work and our community with members outside of Auckland, something we’re always trying to do more of. 2021 was also the year we expanded our team from two to three, and welcomed Ella Pooley in the newly-created role of Fundraising and Digital Media Manager. Ella has excelled in the role so far, and helped fund hundreds of speech and language therapy sessions through her work in grants, regular giving, events, and social media.
